involve

02/06/2026

⚡ 45 local authority officers. Four cities. One shared mission.

🌍 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐲 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐚 𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞: 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐚 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞.

🤝 That's why we partnered with Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Great British Energy, South West Net Zero Hub, Greater South East Net Zero Hub, Midlands Net Zero Hub, North West Net Zero Hub and North East & Yorkshire Net Zero Hub to create a cohort of Energy Champions: officers equipped to lead genuine community engagement on clean energy.

🏙️ Through regional workshops in Birmingham, London, Bristol, and Manchester, participants from energy, planning, housing, and community teams built practical deliberative engagement skills, and tested them in their own councils.

📖 The insights from every cohort have fed directly into new guidance on energy engagement, now available on Net Zero Go.

❓ If you are a local authority officer wanting to build better community engagement on clean energy, head to our website to find out more about this work 👇
https://www.involve.org.uk/our-work/our-projects/how-do-we-give-local-authority-officers-knowledge-and-skills-have-energy

26/05/2026

📢 New case studies have landed on our Local Climate Engagement hub, and they're worth a look.

𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞: 👇
🏘️ Forest of Dean working across multiple tiers to build a hyper-local citizens' vision for Coleford,
🌊 How the Outer Hebrides built confidence to disagree well on community energy,
🏙️ Cardiff Council embedding high-quality public engagement in a city-scale retrofit programme and
🤝 Northern Ireland developing community-led resilience and emergency planning from the ground up.

Read more 👇
🔗 https://lce.org.uk/case-studies/

💬 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐯𝐞 𝐫𝐮𝐧 𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐚, we want to hear from you. Submit your case study and help others learn from what you've done.

📩 Send it here 👇
🔗 https://lce.org.uk/case-studies/

22/05/2026

Trust in politics has reached an all-time low. Only 12 per cent of people now say they trust government, and just one in five think parliament balances the interests of everyone.

This week, IPPR launched Reimagining Lawmaking: How to Rebuild Trust in Parliament – a new report we were pleased to help inform – which highlights citizens’ assemblies as one of its key recommendations for making lawmaking more representative, responsive and trusted.

We welcome this push to give people a real stake in how laws are made in Westminster. The way laws are made shouldn’t feel like something done to people – it should be done with them.

Read more 👇
🔗

All too often citizens are merely spectators as decisions are taken and laws are made in Westminster that shape their lives. This must change. People must

13/05/2026

🗳️ Last week, millions of people voted – but many of those now in charge are governing on surprisingly thin mandates.

In a more fragmented, low‑trust politics, winning office on 30–40% of the vote is not enough; leaders also need better ways of building the legitimacy needed to confront our biggest challenges.

This moment matters beyond the fortunes of any one party. It prompts us to consider the changing nature of political mandates – and how scaling up citizens’ assemblies, juries and other forms of deliberation can make decision‑making more reflective of the people affected, more responsive to different perspectives, and more honest about the trade‑offs involved.

Done well, participation can help strengthen the democratic mandate for difficult decisions by ensuring more people can see their voices reflected in how those decisions are made.

Read some of our initial reflections following the May elections👇
🔗 https://www.involve.org.uk/news-opinion/opinion/after-may-elections-governing-thin-mandates

29/04/2026

🙋 50 strangers. Five months. One of the UK's most beloved institutions.

🤝 The NG Citizens Assembly has wrapped its final session.

🤔 Assembly Members, individuals chosen through a civic lottery process across all four nations of the UK, deliberated, debated, and decided. They considered what they wanted from The National Gallery, and how it could bring people and paintings together in authentic and meaningful ways.

They presented their final Vision Statement and eight guiding Principles to Gallery leadership: the culmination of their hard work.

⏩ But this is only the beginning...

After the Assembly report is published this spring, a Citizens Panel will continue the work by meeting three times a year to scrutinise the progress of the Assembly's recommendations and continue to feed into project development.

❓ What is NG Citizens? A national project bringing together people from across the UK to help shape the future of their National Gallery.

Follow the journey and find out more 👇
https://www.involve.org.uk/our-work/our-projects/what-if-national-gallery-was-shaped-nation

14/04/2026

📅 This Saturday! Watch the story of the UK’s first Climate Assembly and explore what fairer decision‑making could look like in Scotland.󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁤󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

📢 Our very own Kelly McBride, Director of Capacity Building and Standards, is speaking at a free event in Edinburgh exploring citizens' assemblies: one of the most powerful tools for putting real people at the heart of political decisions.

👉 𝘋𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘋𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘺 𝘋𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘚𝘤𝘰𝘵𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘵, 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘊𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘻𝘦𝘯𝘴' 𝘈𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘴.

📍 McDonald Road Library, Edinburgh
📆 Saturday | Doors 14:45 | Starts 15:00
🎟️ Free tickets + free popcorn
♿ Accessible venue
💷 Support available for travel/childcare (Edinburgh, Lothians, Fife & Borders)

𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝗽𝗼𝘁 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗼𝘄 🍿

Watch the story of the UK’s first Climate Assembly and explore what fairer decision‑making could look like in Scotland.

08/04/2026

📢If you haven't come across our Local Climate Engagement hub yet, this is your sign to explore it.

𝘏𝘦𝘳𝘦'𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘪𝘴 𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦. 👇

https://lce.org.uk/how-to-close-the-loop-on-your-engagement-1/

📣 𝐘𝐨𝐮'𝐯𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭. 𝐍𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭?

One of the biggest frustrations people have with public participation? Feeling like their ideas disappeared into a void.

Closing the feedback loop is how you change that and how you turn a one-off engagement into lasting democratic value. 🔄

📒 Stage 7 of our Local Climate Engagement guide walks you through how to close the loop effectively, with a practical checklist, key moments to feed back, and tips for the tricky conversations.

👀 Read the guide here 👇
🔗 https://lce.org.uk/how-to-close-the-loop-on-your-engagement-1/

24/03/2026

✨Happening this Friday!

🌊 More-than-human voices.

Reeds. Fish. Birds. People. Who speaks for Lough Neagh?

The largest freshwater lake in the UK and Ireland has been in crisis. And the communities who live beside it, love it and depend on it are asking what comes next — and crucially, who gets a say in deciding.

On 27th March, as part of the Imagine Festival, Involve is convening a full day of listening, conversation and democratic experimentation at the Crescent Arts Centre in Belfast in response.

The day opens with creative and family-friendly activities exploring who speaks for the Lough: reeds, fish, birds, people. It moves into an open, participant-led 'unconference' where people shape their own conversations. And in the afternoon, participants are invited into a taster Citizens' Assembly — a real, hands-on experience of what it might feel like to make decisions together about the Lough's future.

That evening, investigative journalist Tommy Greene, whose forthcoming book ‘Troubled Waters’ tells the story of the Lough's long mismanagement, joins civic leaders and a traditional storyteller for a conversation about power, protest and what democracy demands now.

This is participation not as process, but as practice. As hope.

Tickets are pay what you can. Everyone is welcome.

🔗 Day event: https://imaginebelfast.com/event/listening-to-the-lough-a-day-of-democracy-care-and-imagination/
🔗 Evening event: https://imaginebelfast.com/event/listening-to-the-lough-stories-struggle-democratic-futures/

𝘗𝘩𝘰𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘵: 𝘑𝘰𝘦 𝘓𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘺

An all-day gathering of reflection, creativity, learning and democratic experimentation, responding to the ecological and political crisis.

19/03/2026

📢 We’re excited to share that Sue Tibballs OBE will be joining Involve as our new Chief Executive on 20 April 2026.

Sue brings nearly three decades of leadership at the intersection of civil society, politics and social change, including as Chief Executive of the Sheila McKechnie Foundation and Women in Sport, and as Chair of the Fawcett Society and 38 Degrees. She was awarded an OBE for services to sport in the 2014 New Year’s Honours list.

🚨 As democracy comes under increasing strain and many people feel distant from the institutions that are meant to represent them, our mission to put people at the heart of decision-making has never been more important.

🗣️ As our Chair Kevin Steel says:

“Helping to renew UK democracy through public participation has never been more important, and Sue will bring tremendous ambition and skill to this cause.”

We’re hugely grateful to Stephanie Draper and Carly Walker-Dawson, who have led Involve through an interim co-leadership period since June 2025, and to Kevin for his support and stewardship throughout this transition.

Read more 👇
🔗https://www.involve.org.uk/news-opinion/news/sue-tibballs-obe-joins-involve-our-chief-executive