Yesterday, our WaterLANDS partners from Wetlands International spoke in a panel discussion on “Implementing Restoration Solutions, Together” as part of a Dublin-based event, organised by ERINN Innovation, titled “Co-Creating Change: Participatory Approaches for a Resilient Ireland”.

Across Ireland, co-creation, community-led bottom-up initiatives, and participatory approaches are being embraced more frequently, as practitioners and local actors increasingly see their potential to deliver more adaptive, equitable, and effective responses to pressing issues, including climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution and land-use change. This event discussed ways to bridge the gap between science, policy, and society and looked at participatory approaches that can create meaningful change for all.

The event featured three in-depth panel discussions featuring co-creation approaches from Living Labs to bridging the Gap Between Society and Policy. The second panel, “Implementing Restoration Solutions, Together”, was joined by representatives from Irish nature restoration charity Hometree, the FarmPEAT project and the LIFE IP Wild Atlantic Nature project.

Key highlights:

🌿 The event brought together practitioners, policymakers, community leaders, researchers, and innovators to explore how participatory approaches can unlock new possibilities for transformative change across Ireland, both in shaping policy and in driving on-the-ground practices.

🌿 Sonia Mena (Wetlands International) highlighted the co-creation framework being developed and tested within the WaterLANDS project (WP5) and shared on-the-ground examples from the WaterLANDS Action Sites.

🌿 The co-creation framework developed in WaterLANDS explores how co-creation could support stakeholder engagement in wetland restoration projects. The framework for co-creation is designed to be adaptable to diverse sociocultural and environmental contexts.

🌿Does true co-creation take time? Sonia Mena: Yes, trying to change behaviour in people's minds takes time. We are trying to change the way in which people collaborate with each other, and we want them to call on the marginalised groups that have been historically excluded from these processes.

🌿The event featured multiple EU-funded projects, aside from WaterLANDS, such as the EmpowerUS project and the Score project, discussing the use of Living Labs and Regional Networks to co-create solutions. EmpowerUs creates bottom-up solutions to support coastal communities across six European countries in their transition towards more sustainable, inclusive and resilient coastal development. The Score project has developed a network of 10 coastal city “Living Labs” addressing water and climate-related hazards to enhance climate resilience.