Process for gathering proposals from the network

Early next week we will invite participants in the ECA network to begin developing "proposals". The coordination team is working on the formulation of this process right now.

Here I copy a long and important message on the Policy Proposals that was sent out to the Coordination group today:

To Nov. 16 Coordination Team:

We have to ensure we are in agreement about the policy proposal process. After more thinking, some issues have come up and we need to get on the same page before we invite people to participate.

Background:
- Discussions on the program and the meeting with the MEPs on September 28
- There was a coordination call with Gaelle, Sophie, Ina, Fred, and Nicole (Wednesday)
- We agreed that the “policy proposal” process is central to the European Commons Assembly. We identified some tools (hackpad, loomio subgroup) to gather policy proposals from the ECA network, and we decided that we would introduce the process for gathering proposals to the whole network on Monday and invite them to claim subjects.
- There was a call with Nicole, Elizabeth Hunt, and Fred (Thursday).
- Elizabeth reiterated her reluctance to come into Parliament with independently constructed, pre-defined proposals (but is still committed to working with us). She wants to maintain space for some genuine open discussion in the session. The MEPs also want this – a dialogue rather than just a presentation.

Issue:

For the proposals to be successful, we must clearly define and agree on the working method, taking everything into account: not just the event of the 16th itself, but also the time before, and after. If we want to successfully overcome the problems of issue siloes and unaccountable experts and make a real step towards collective production (the stated goals of the ECA), we must view “policy proposals” not as an outcome to be presented but an ongoing process.

There is some risk that, in working in isolated groups before the event, we fail to act collectively and close the conversation. We must take care that we are not creating a gap between experts and non-experts when we discuss each issue. We, in the room, are each expert and non-expert (expert in our issue and non-expert in the other!) The Assembly should draw strength from the collective intelligence and deepen the political understanding around our different topics.

Our challenge in Parliament is to create the conditions for a discussion that is open (mobilising our collective intelligence), but that also leverages the years of work that many of these activists have put in on these issues. We cannot just start from scratch in parliament, and the facilitation in the room alone cannot make the discussion open.

I think that the word “policy proposal” has been a bit misleading for many people. It suggests that we are demanding something from the MEPs, that everything has been decided in advance. I don’t think this is exactly what we want.
We may need to rethink our vocabulary before we invite people to participate. Until now, we have actually been working with “issue areas” rather than proposals.

Our pitch:

To handle this problem we should go further and think a bit about what we will concretely be asking these groups to produce (the deliverable). What is it? A “policy proposal” written in one paragraph? A “proposal on how to engage with local groups on specific issues?” A “toolkit” that gives context to an issue, shows some examples, and identifies ways forward for better policymaking? In some areas, the proposals already exist and are obvious, but in others it’s not so easy to identify what they should be. Here is our pitch:

1. We can ask that members participate by:
2. Formulating the problem. It could be formulated as an objective, a vision based on the values of the commons, a more concrete proposal, etc.
3. Documenting some experiences that respond to this problem (we can come up with a minimum number)
4. Documenting the state of the art around this problem
5. Documenting policy proposals that correspond to this problem that are already known

6. Or, they could even change / adapt the methodology in their own way to ensure that it enriches the discussion on the 16th of November and beyond
   Of course, this will require effort to think about how we can best present and discuss this background work in the allotted time in Parliament. But this is important for what we and MEPs want to achieve with the ECA!

7. We also ask that we consider spending more of our 3.5 hours in Parliament on proposals. Now there are just 60 minutes allocated in the Agenda. We could shorten the third section about the ECA as a network to free up
   some more time, say 20 minutes. Remember we also have the session on the 17th outside Parliament.

8. We put one or two pauses in the Agenda. 3.5 hours with no breaks and a quality conversation is too much to ask!

9. We change the name from “policy proposal” to something else. We need some help. My favorite for now is : “Policy toolkits”, but it can also be “issue area” or “joint demands” (which I don’t like much). To me, the ensemble of all the “proposals” is not exactly our joint demands, or the fixed “Political Agenda of the ECA ”. It’s rather a direct articulation of what our network works on; an exposition and attempt to genuinely understand commons issues and policy better. It’s a prototyping of some topics, but not all.

Next steps/ “our ask”:

Please let us know if you agree with each of the above 4 points. You can also share thoughts and make additions, for example other possible names than “policy proposals”. Once we have your input Nicole can draft the email that will be circulated to the network to start the process. And then, we will have to facilitate it, that is a big job and we will need help!

Then, we will :
- Update the agenda of the meeting at the parliament and ask MEPs for a time for collective validation of the agenda. It could be by call or face to face meeting.
- Update the program of the whole meeting in Brussels (Nov 15-17) and circulate it in the second round of invitations

Thank you
Nicole and Frederic

This was a reply from Ismaël: Hi Everybody,
About renaming "policy proposal", I propose "policy co-creation" or even "policy co-creation design", as it shows we build something collectively on a basis that might stand as an international agenda in progress, but also as a method of coordination.

@sophie40 in response to your email, yes, please write up an example and put it on the pad. There is a link on the homepage of this subgroup but I will post it again here: https://europeancommonsassembly.hackpad.com/Policy-Proposals-WnSX18B6o07

And thanks @gaelle11 for your response just now.

I put the draft example on the hacked, that can be modified and developed There are quite some people working on copyright and knowledge management in the assembly.
https://europeancommonsassembly.hackpad.com/Knowledge-Copyright-Lqb0XTHIBgS

Can we work with this?

I think we can give some other topics on which EU policy is ongoing. I agree we do not need a ton of proposals, let;s see what gets picked up on in the collaborative process.

funding programs

(how to support small scale and pro-commons initiatives, what about crowdfunding and public-private partnerships)

Energy policy-

(how can EU do more to enhance energy transition, while facilitating the thriving of local energy coops)

Democracy

(how can eu democratize, and enhance participatory democracy, how can the learn from innovative institution at the local level)

internet

(how can the EU contribute to the management of the internet as a commons, of a our digital public space, instead of as a commercial sphere to extract value from users)

refugees
urban commons

So I added Transportation to the master list, and a proposal pad here. It probably needs some work, but I'm pretty sure commoning transportation could do it and its user a lot of good :smiley:

I added a first very simple and basic hackpad for urban commons
please feel free to correct and improve

An update: There will be a mail sent this week on the main commonswatch list about the process; we will stop accepting new topics on October 24 (but continue to work on what's already been proposed).

Hi everyone, I'm probably a bit late to this process, but happy to be (finally) involved. I have some general comments regarding these proposals.
1. I understand the point about this being a process, but I think the proposal needs to be clear to the people / institutions it will be targetted at; I understand that these are the policymakers in Brussels (very broadly understood), if that is the case, we should to some extent "speak their language". If we are doing a big event, it would be good to present "policy proposals" as such; we can internally beleive these are in flux, co-created, etc. - but I don't think it will be clear to present a list of "policy co-creation designs". Even if internally this feels more in line with the way this assembly works. Maybe it will help to underline that these are really proposals for legislators - a set of internal values / recommendations / guidelines / directions would probably look and feel very different.
2. Maybe it would help to better define what the proposals themselves should look like. I think that a very long list of varied recommendations will not be very clear - detailed recommendations will also be hard to discuss beyond the groups that draft them. So maybe we should additionally frame some principles / "big recommendations" (for instance some that horizontally cut across subject areas?), and limit them to 10 and 20?