PARTICIPATORY PROCESS

The participatory process has a central position within the project, as it is at the heart of the co-creation mechanism. At a regional level, Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue Platforms (MSDP) and Living Labs will be established in the 4 demonstration sites. 

Following Smits’s definition of innovation (2002), solutions developed within MAGO ‘s framework will include three forms of innovation: 

• Technical innovation (hardware)
• Innovation in terms of know-how (software)
• Innovation at the institutional level (orgware)

To successfully embrace those three dimensions, knowledge from end-users – farmers, water managers, and local authorities– is a real asset. Introducing new devices, practices, and ways of interacting at an institutional level requires some changes to be made. Against this context, it is important to examine which category of stakeholders would be taking risks in accepting and facing those changes, and who is likely to benefit from them.

In MAGO, the new position given to end-users will be reflected on the participative process at a field level, inspired by the Living Lab, an innovation process set up in the real-world considering end-users as co-creators. Complementary to this first participative layer, a second one will be deployed in the regional field: a Multistakeholder Dialogue Platform (MSDP), involving indirect stakeholders debating on the long-term implications and the representation of innovations with the political agenda. A facilitator will be in charge of designing and maintaining the “human infrastructure” at the heart of the innovation process on both levels. Discussion at the MSDP should contribute to setting up evaluation criteria of innovation at the Living Lab.

Smits, R., 2002. Innovation studies in the 21st century; questions from a user’s perspective. Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change 69, 861–883. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0040-1625(01)00181-0