External evaluation

External evaluation of Meeting of Minds by Dialogik, non-profit corporation for communication and cooperation research

Executive summary

Final report (pdf - 393 kb), December 2006
Annex A Interim Report, December 8, 2005 
Annex B Preliminary report, May, 16, 2006

Executive summary

The Project Meeting of Minds accomplished all envisioned objectives – the content related objectives with great success, the procedural objectives with satisfactory success. The citizens’ elaboration phase resulted in the European Citizens’ Assessment Report and the National Synthesis Report. The two reports represent concrete policy advice and are important indicators for the feasibility of a successful dialog among European citizens.

The ECD-Project provided a lot of experiences of how to constitute and implement a successful methodology for a participative process. In a comparison with other initiatives at the European level, the Meeting of Minds-Project occupied a unique position. One essential and unique design feature has been the interaction between the national and the European level of dialog during the process. The participants in the European dialog interacted in a multi-lingual and multi-cultural context across national boarders. The process involved experts as resource persons but the citizens played the central role because they generated the final outcomes.

The interaction between scientists and the citizens generally was trustful and effective. Both sides were interested in the perspective of the counterpart. The lively exchange and the mutual interest on each other’s perspective can be seen as an important outcome of the project.

Being designed as an exploratory exercise for a European dialog among citizens the project triggered the motivation to show best performance by all participants. The commitment of all persons involved, especially the commitment of the citizens, was very high.

The citizens acted not only as representatives of their country, they understood themselves as European participants. The process promoted a European dialog and, as a consequence of this, an emerging European group identity among the citizens. The project successfully connected the individuals with the process and its objectives. It can be assumed that this “Meeting of Minds-Identity” was one of the triggers for the high degree of commitment. The visible, intense efforts of the organizers additionally fostered the commitment of the citizens. The citizens proved to be reliable and competent. They were fully capable to contribute to the process and the complex subject matter and they took full responsibility for the results.

The basic design of the process generally worked as intended. The order of events was logically structured and served the envisioned process. Some aspects of the basic designs were not optimally implemented, which lead to negative impacts on the process and occasionally reduced the personal involvement and dedication. The design of the European events placed more attention on structural components such as rule setting. Less efforts were invested in facilitating the interactions among all persons involved as well as in procedural aspects. However, these aspects did not compromise the quality of the recommendations.

There were three concrete problems connected with the two Citizens’ Conventions: the time framing, the lack of transparency of the procedures and the dense regulation of the dialog by rules (“over-proceduralisation”).

• One major constraint during the Convention was the time pressure. The long working days physically challenged all participants, diminished opportunities to participate freely in the dialog and led to activities of diversion. The narrow time frame additionally reduced the possibilities to compensate difficult situations and intensified or caused some problems.
• A lack of transparency was detected regarding the procedures and methods but also concerning the content and the visualisation of content. The overload of the process especially aggravated the dialog.
• The interactions were strongly influenced by a vast number of regulations and rules that increased the complexity of the process, caused a high “cognition load” and produced irritations of all persons involved as well as irregularities in the process. Some rules also turned out to be counterproductive.

The organisers invested large efforts to communicate their experiences as well as the results of the dialog to the science community, the political institutions and interested actors in society. They selected an adequate framing for the transmission of the results to the political decision makers in the European Parliament. This event also triggered important repercussions in the media.

It still remains open whether the project can produce long-term impacts. The communication and dissemination phase is not yet completed. The citizens as well as other persons involved articulated their hope that the project will have an effect on the policy level. Political impact also depends on factors that are outside of the control of the participants as well as the organisers. However, there were opportunities for the organisers that were not fully seized. For example, the establishment of an informal online-dialog located on the project’s web-site would have increased the possibility of a long-term impact.

Brain sciences and related technologies are still in the phase of early development. Their implications raise fundamental questions of human identity and the nature of the human mind, issues that have not been adequately addressed in the scientific communities dealing with this subject. Without public involvement and participation the public is likely to reject the concepts and interpretations put forth by technical elites. Since these questions transcend scientific or technical aspects of feasibility and implementability it is essential that a broad discourse about the ethical and social implications is initiated and sustained.

The Meeting of Minds-Project can be seen as a valuable contribution for developing a broad socially accepted perspective on these new technologies. The project provided ordinary citizens with the opportunity to raise an “official” voice and offer an informed set of preferences and recommendations addressed to decision makers. The project promoted an elevated level of public understanding of science as well as a better “scientific understanding of the public”.

The Meeting of Minds-Project documents the feasibility, the effectiveness and the efficiency of public participation even at a multinational European level. All methodological experiences gained during the process constitute a valuable base for developing and advancing participatory technology assessment on the European level.