How can we rethink a region’s economic development policy, particularly in light of its dependence on resources? Under what conditions can these vulnerabilities and interdependencies offer a starting point for initiating cooperation between territories? How can collaboration between public action and scientific research be improved, so that the latter is more useful to agents and elected representatives?
Together with researchers Magali Talandier and Mohamed Hachaichi, and our colleagues from the Figeac Vallée de Dordogne PETR, we wanted to understand the conditions under which a research project could provide the starting point for collaboration between local players and inter-communities. Our starting point was the
We hypothesized that, by objectifying the territory’s dynamics, vulnerabilities and interdependencies, it could stimulate cooperation between inter-communities. The first stage enabled us to clarify our questions How can we complement the scientific perspective with the real-life experience of local players and residents? How can we translate the findings of the diagnosis into challenges, but also into points of controversy and debate, as a basis for cooperation? How can we widen the circle of elected representatives mobilized by the report, from those most convinced of the need to change the vision of economic development, to others who are less familiar with these issues? To what extent could the diagnosis form part of a common knowledge base to welcome new elected officials? How can collaboration between researchers and public players be improved, before, during and after the production process?
How do you move from diagnosis to action? To do this, we have produced and tested several devices :
- a discussion tool for stakeholders, elected representatives and local public servants to embrace the controversies that emerge from the diagnosis, and thus support its appropriation, going beyond the “facts” presented to grasp the tensions they raise, and the points to be arbitrated in order to move forward collectively.
- A welcome kit for future elected representatives, in the form of a series of newsletters and conversations/webinars sent out and organized during the first 6 months of the term of office, to dissect the diagnosis, embody it with the experiences of local players, and organize discussion between old and new elected representatives.
- Adapting the format of the diagnostic presentation, to organize an upstream dialogue and echo with the territory and existing projects.