Grant Award: Is Participatory Democracy the Answer to the Climate Crisis?

A cross-faculty team of researchers from the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources (Dr Nick Hughes) and the UCL Global Governance Institute (Julia Kreienkamp and Dr Tom Pegram) has been awarded funding under the Bartlett Research Grants Scheme (BRGS) for the project “Let the people decide” – Is Participatory Democracy the Answer to the Climate Crisis?

The funded project explores the role of participatory democracy processes in supporting the net-zero transition. Drawing on examples from the UK and internationally, the project will develop a practical framework for the design of participatory democracy processes aimed at tackling the climate crisis, that are effective, produce tractable results, and enhance trust in democracy. This framework will then be applied to concrete issues relating to the net-zero transition that might be deliberated in the context of future participatory democracy processes in the UK. Research outputs will be shared on the project website.