The Shipyard Foundation is one of the leading organisations in Poland dealing with the subject of civic participation which we understand as including citizens in decision-making processes on issues that concern them. Since 2009 Shipyards’ Civic Participation Team has organised and conducted dozens of projects in several areas of participatory activities.
We are experienced practitioners of civic participation
We design and conduct participatory processes (in particular: public consultation processes and processes carried out with methods not previously used in Poland, such as a series of civic councils on education in 2019:, municipal civic panels (Lublin, Warsaw, Rzeszów) or the first nationwide citizens panel in 2022). When organising participatory processes, we strive to tailor the methods to the purpose of the process and to ensure that the largest possible group of interested people can easily participate. We are willing to use methods that haven’t been used before or have not been used on a larger scale, but above all we care about the accessibility and effectiveness of the tools we use. We hope to inspire other organisations working in the field to benefit from our experience, which is why we frequently collaborate with similar CSOs, as well as to spark a change in the social perception of citizen participation. Therefore, we are eager to establish partnerships and cooperate with others.
We are a Polish hub for civic participation practitioners
We actively support and network the community of people professionally involved in citizen participation; we have been the initiators and organisers of meetings of this community over the years, conducting thematic seminars on various aspects of citizen participation, often with the contribution of guests from abroad. To date and every year since 2014, we have been regularly organising a nationwide Participation Practitioners’ Forum, which brings together almost 300 practitioners of civic participation from different sectors from all over Poland for two days of educational and networking activities. The agenda is also prepared in a participatory manner – ideas for sessions are collected in an open call prior to the event, while sessions at the Forum are led by practitioners who are themselves also participants in the Forum. For recent events, we also invite guests from abroad who bring a new perspective on civic participation based on their backgrounds as well as present tools and experiences from other countries.
We gather and share knowledge on civic participation
We are engaged in educational activities on civic participation. We run the largest Polish repository of knowledge on civic participation, where we collect information that is useful for both advanced professionals and beginners when it comes to this topic, including: descriptions of good practices, participatory techniques, relevant publications and news. We send a monthly newsletter to more than 2.5 thousand recipients interested in the topic. Moreover, we run the profile Forum Praktyków Partycypacji on facebook with 3.5 thousand followers.
We also released a few publications ourselves: a guide to a participatory model of the national citizens dialogue (2024, in English), a guide to citizen councils for prospective organisers in the Bez lania wody programme, (2024, Polish), “10 steps of a good citizen council” (2022, Polish), as well as publications on participatory budgeting in schools (2019, Polish), on participation of the elderly (2014, only in Polish) and a series on participatory budgeting (2015, only in Polish), including, among others, standards for conducting such processes.
We support other CSOs also in grant programs
Since 2023, we have also been running specific programmes to support CSOs, both those that deal with civic participation on a daily basis and are in need of an institutional development (The Participation Department), as well as those that are taking their first steps when it comes to participatory actions (Debuts in Participation). In both programmes the participating organisations receive thorough training, are engaged in a series of educational activities conducted by experienced professionals and go on to organise further projects.
Since 2020 we have also been running the Active Citizens – National Fund programme in the area of involving citizens in public affairs and social action. Our foundation is one of the consortium members carrying out the Programme.
We work with public officials and local governments
We cooperate not only with other CSOs dealing with issues concerning citizen participation and civic dialogue, but also with civil servants, especially, during specific public consultation processes that we help to carry out in Polish municipalities. For several years we have coordinated EU projects (Space for participation) dedicated to the organisation of public consultations of planning documents at the municipal level, working with around 50 of them in total. We are therefore well acquainted with the main challenges faced by this group of participation practitioners.
The Shipyard Foundation as an organisation has also a lot of experience when it comes to working with public officials at the central level, trying to develop concrete solutions that would strengthen civic dialogue in Poland. In 2012, we participated in the creation of the 7 principles of consultation, that is guidelines for conducting consultation processes, which were implemented by the then Ministry of Digitalisation and were further recommended for use as part of the Better Regulations 2015 programme. In recent years, Shipyard has also initiated and organised several civic hearings, including on the National Reconstruction Plan in 2021.
We work internationally
Shipyard Foundation has extensive relationships with professionals involved in citizen participation in other countries. Among other things, we are currently a partner in several international projects on participatory activities and a member of People Powered – an international network of participation practitioners around the world. In 2023, we organised an international event Voice & Vote – let’s go above public consultation, dedicated to deliberative methods in participatory processes, which was attended by participation practitioners from Poland and abroad, who participated in a series of workshops and networking activities. We are also members of the KNOCA community, dedicated to developing the citizens’ assembly methodology.
Contact us!
Our team:
Agata Bluj >>, abluj@stocznia.org.pl
Maria Belina Brzozowska >>, mbelinabrzozowska@stocznia.org.pl
Marcin Górecki >>, mgorecki@stocznia.org.pl
Katarzyna Pawłowska >>, kpawlowska@stocznia.org.pl
Maria Perchuć-Żółtowska >>, mperchuc@stocznia.org.pl
Jan Wiśniewski >>, jwisniewski@stocznia.org.pl
Our publications in English:
