Towards Best Practices 2.0
An expert seminar of best practices in rural development
October 8‐9, 2013, Helsinki, Finland,
GLO Hotel Art Lönnrotinkatu 29, Helsinki http://www.hotelglo.fi/glo‐art
Report
To whom: Rural network support units, researchers, evaluators
Backround
Collecting best practices has been one of the key tasks for the rural networks. The programming period is about to end and the other one is beginning. What are the lessons learnt from collecting, analyzing and transferring best practices? What criteria have been used to spot them? How they are disseminated and transferred to other areas? Do we have good criteria for the transferability? What tools have been used in the processes?
Statement: The potential of best practices has not been fully utilized - 21 out of 22 participants agree. Lessons from this programming period should be used to find better approaches and tools. We have to update our approach and create Best Practice 2.0 version.
A best practice tool 2.0?
The participants shared, reflected and provoked in order to build and model future steps. We asked ourselves what makes a practice “best”, are there any universal truths about transferability, how context- or level -situated are the practices, could we learn more from “worst” practices and should we put emphasis on quality and start embedding instead of collecting and disseminating? The answers to questions why we are collecting and for whom, should guide our work for BP2.0.
I/ European Rural Think tank – transferability – elements of transferability
The European Rural Alliance ERA financed by the Rural policy Committee in Finland implements a project where rural NGO´s and researchers were invited to send in articles about practices and to tell about their ideas´ transferability at European level. The same exercise was made by the participants on the basis of three examples.
a/ The Rural Policy Committee as a Multi-sectoral Governance Network
Hanna-Mari Kuhmonen
The Rural Policy Committee is about Governance in rural policy by networks, partnerships and deliberative forums. It is also power sharing between different levels of government, synergy and interdependence between a wide range of actors. The multi-sector approach is connecting public, private and NGO sector in rural development policy.
→ It is a good practice for creating and developing rural policy. The participative and horizontal approach in connection with a stable structure and financing makes it a good practice. It is an example of cooperation between actors and administration. Influencing before decision is possible. The method or parts of it are transferable. The political context can be an obstacle.
b/ Countryside 2.0 - Josefin Heed hela Sverige skall leva
“Countryside 2.0 is a place-based process meeting method that aims to create democratic meetings on local development across generational borders. Educating young, regional process meeting facilitators belongs to the method.
→ Methods and education (young facilitators here) are transferable. Participative tools (involving administration and decision-making) are good for preparing local development plans. An open source explanative method bank should be available.
c/All Sweden Shall Live - The local economy concept
All Sweden shall live has managed projects involving local economy and the issue of how local financing can become a complement to – or come to completely replace – public financing and/or taking loans from commercial banks. Local people, associations and companies build a local financing infrastructure. A community development tool called Local Economic Analysis (LEA) results in a “market research” report, which could and should be used as a basis for a local development plan.
→ A handbook/an informative booklet for local economy would give ideas on place-based economy, even though the political, geographical and financial context plays a big role. The lack of trust, money and education are obstacles to transferability. When it works, it connects local people, local money and builds trust.
Lessons from the small think tanks – elements of best practice - elements of definition
It is often dependent on the context, which could be understood as local, regional or national
It addresses a crucial need
It need to engage people – passion, vision, action: a long term process, trust (successful transfer)
There is always a strong participatory element
It could be a process, a method, participation, learning
We could learn more from failures
It is a learning process, we need ability to extract the universe things that are transferable
Not all rural development is driven by policy, not all by bottom-up
No single model on collecting multifunctional, no single model
II/ ENRD point of view: lessons learnt
Collecting was made because told to do so (regulations). The ENRD had to think about criteria, type of projects, description, target groups, description, geographic and thematic coverage, case-analysis, quantity versus quality aso… which was a painful process. These questions are still relevant when thinking about the new period of implementation. But we also need rethink: Should the BP-bank be restructured taking into account the new thematic objectives and 18 focus areas? We should not consider only projects, but also processes, procedures and other practices. Perhaps less standard formats are needed in the future.
III/ Finnish Rural Network Unit – practices for collecting and disseminating
Examples: Multichannel communication dissemination, thematic years, campaigns, road shows- Amaze me rally, innovation camps, rural van tour, seminars, study trips, thematic project meetings, Leader tent (sme´s financed by LEADER presenting their case).
IV/ Workshops
Workshop A: Tools for disseminating and collecting - Why disseminate and to whom?
More examples: Competitions, social media, brochures, events, seminars, study trips, media, magazines, networks, exhibition on wheels, TV-show. Database on villages to see what they are doing: choose good practices and make a booklet - The best/ideal village/project of the world?
Could we think of think tanks over internet/phone? Can we give resources for seminars from people to people? What about systematic collection of good practices (a specific template)?
Facing the reality
· Be there and listen, the best teachers are at local level on local issues
· Too professional is unprofessional – we should be a learning community.
· The social media catches groups that are out otherwise – Youtube, blogs, don´t make it boring.
· Local actors should be the target group, they look for the information when the need is there.
Workshop B - Criteria for transferability
Needs are often driven contextually – we need identified needs. You can always set criteria, but they are different dependent on the thematic. There is a participative element and people are involved.
Workshop C - Worst practice
No understanding, no trust, no commitment, do have hidden agendas
Use as much time as possible: inspiration will go away, don´t analyze and think of new projects
Have strict procedures and methods
Don´t look at the plan, jump over steps, no documentation and change people
Don´t be a learning community
Get professional help for your plan so you get financing, the ministry might agree.
Do not have fun.
V/ Input from research
A. Timo M. Suutari, Ruralia Institute, University of Helsinki
The best practices and benchmarking started from the business sector and was then adapted by public sector and public policy evaluation.
There is always a context and the practice is brought from one context to another. Transferring is also reformative by nature – it might lead to social innovations. When transferring, a double learning should occur in the community/organisation: learn how to extract universally transferable elements and how to implement it in the new context. The learning occurs in social interaction.
You don´t always understand the contextuality or the dynamics. The concept itself is ambiguous, very abstract and the result might be visible only years later. From a projects point of view temporary structures cause problems. Most of the ideas are there, we should not be re-inventing the wheel. Emphasis should be put on disseminating, implementing and embedding. Publishing is good dissemination and videos/pictures are very informative.
Comments:
- Communities/organisations could be more learning ones. The EU-level is conservative/political
- Projects are quite alone – they don´t have so much channels to disseminate.
- Operationalise is difficult: often you find processes and actions to transfer and recommendations, but the
success cannot be guaranteed. BP´s are based on processes and procedures, you need resources, social,
human and financial capital.
B. Best practices and experimentation‐driven development Anssi Tuulenmäki, Chief Innovation Activist & Research Manager - Aalto University School of Science and Technology. Video: www.bya.net
Everything is to attract resources behind the idea. Best practices is about copying. The copy is the starting point in your context and you should build on it. We make often the mistake of thinking too big (smaller steps instead) or sometimes not big enough (crazier your idea is, more it attracts resources). Business plans are good as such, but mostly they fail.
The experiment driven development model is about testing your idea in practice and learning from the failures and feedback. You need opportunity ideas (I have a market), but the execution idea is more important and that can be done by experimenting and it can also be a fictive one. Documentation is important and even failure résumés are useful in the learning process.
Openings
· Should we invest in experimentation capability: living labs, pilot factories – experimentation factories. Should we have risk money? Should we be given a licence to act differently?
· Find the right level of thinking
· Do different things or same things differently
· Laws and regulations are not always our best allies
· Small experimental issues in big ideas and big openings in small experiments.
VI/ Idea and discussion café
- Best practices for innovations in the framework of the new EIP: how to create the operational groups and involve researchers and farmers? Finding criteria for innovations is difficult. The projects could be project-related or process –related. ENRD is expected to have a database.
- We should engage EU-level (action) researchers in the learning process on best practices – how to introduce theories into local community processes.
- We should transfer the “BP acquis” to the next period and adapt it to the new regulations. Web, templates, peer to peer and mutual learning were mentioned.
- The European Rural Parliament (13.11.2013 the first edition) could be one forum where communities and EU meet every two years. This communication, information and networking method could be developed by all interested partners to become one serious information and communication channel from inhabitants and smaller actors to the EU-level. Network-based multi-expertise think tanks could be a tool to collect practices from local level, analyse them and develop them further to become more transferable BP´s.
- We need to take steps towards learning communities. The national NSU´s could take a supportive role by providing platforms, tools, information.
- A method bank with guidelines and inspiring databanks are welcome. At national level, organize a weekly BP challenge.
Rapporteurs: Kim Smedslund, Anna Augustyn