Search Results (85)

Background: This research explores the intersection between cultural heritage and mental health, analyzing how heritage mediation acts as a strategic asset in the personal recovery of individuals experiencing mental distress. Methods: A systematic review was conducted across PubMed, PsycINFO (via ProQuest Psychology Collection), Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar for the 2015–2026 period, following PRISMA protocols. The methodological quality of 18 selected studies was evaluated using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT). Results: The findings reveal that the efficacy of these practices stems from a symbiotic interaction between tangible and intangible heritage, functioning as an “identity scaffold” that facilitates the transition from a “patient identity” toward a “citizen identity” with biographical authority. Analysis under the CHIME (Conexión—Hope—Identity—Meaning—Empowerment) framework reveals convergent evidence across the Identity dimension, positioning cultural environments as “third spaces” that mitigate self-stigma. Discussion and Conclusions: Recovery is identified as a circular phenomenon requiring the convergence of clinical and cultural scaffolding. This study advocates for a humanized service architecture where therapeutic practices and affective curating coexist, ensuring the right to identity and social justice within community mental health contexts. Full article

Disasters pose severe threats to life, livelihoods, and socioeconomic stability globally, with disproportionate impacts on vulnerable groups. Despite growing recognition of the importance of citizen engagement in disaster risk reduction and resilience (D3R), existing participatory frameworks remain fragmented, predominantly top-down, and unsustainable beyond project funding cycles. There is a recognised need for an integrated conceptual framework that aims to systematically embed co-design and co-create principles into D3R governance while aiming to ensure the inclusion of vulnerable populations. This paper addresses this gap by presenting the Co-Design Co-Create Framework (CCF), a conceptual institutional model for citizen engagement in D3R. The CCF comprises six iterative phases—KNOW, RAISE AWARENESS, CO-DESIGN CO-CREATE, OUTREACH, KEEP ENGAGED, and EVALUATION—organized as a Living Lab ecosystem. Distinctive conceptual innovations include a Disaster Assembly mechanism designed to promote long-term sustainability through polycentric governance, explicit inclusion of vulnerable groups via Social Vulnerability Index assessment, proposed dual production of co-created policies and co-designed tangible solutions, and participatory tools including Policy Delphi and Storytelling. Unlike conventional time-bound initiatives, the CCF is designed to address critical gaps in existing disaster risk reduction (DRR) practices through embedded sustainability mechanisms, citizen empowerment aimed at Arnstein’s highest participation level, systematic knowledge-to-product translation, and bottom-up planning principles. This conceptual framework conceptualises disaster resilience as a continuously evolving, socially legitimate, and just process anchored in durable governance structures. Empirical validation through field implementation constitutes a direction for future research. Full article

Authentic Digital Interaction (ADI) refers to citizens’ direct, secure, and independent engagement with e-government services without reliance on intermediaries. This systematic literature review applies ADI as an organizing lens to synthesize recent empirical evidence on determinants shaping citizen interaction with e-government. Following PRISMA, 178 peer-reviewed studies published between January 2020, and October 2025 were identified across five databases, and 43 met the inclusion criteria. Descriptive mapping and ADI-guided narrative synthesis were used to consolidate related determinants and interpret their associations and contextual conditions. The review identifies three dominant patterns: perceived usefulness and performance expectancy are most frequently associated with intention, use, and continuance; trust and confidence shape whether perceived benefits translate into engagement; and policy and governance condition service consistency and the effects of usability and accessibility. Theoretically, the review shows that ADI provides a useful lens for interpreting e-government research beyond adoption and satisfaction by emphasizing direct, trustworthy, inclusive, and independent citizen interaction. Practically, the findings suggest that public agencies should prioritize accessible design, transparent processes, visible safeguards, and supportive governance arrangements. However, no formal risk-of-bias assessment was conducted. In addition, the evidence base remains limited by the sparse examination of participation, value co-creation, autonomy, and empowerment, and the review protocol, although prepared in advance, was not registered. Full article

Public administrations increasingly seek to adopt digital tools for evidence-based policymaking, yet systematic frameworks guiding this adoption remain scarce. This paper aims to develop and apply a co-creation framework for technology adoption roadmaps in public sector policymaking. The objectives are threefold: (1) to systematically identify impacts, facilitators, and barriers through structured stakeholder engagement; (2) to structure these elements into Impact Pathways and Transition Scenarios; and (3) to derive actionable policy recommendations. Using a participatory action research design, a seven-step co-creation methodology was applied across all four cases addressing crisis management challenges: forest fires in Finland, floods and refugee reception in Italy, power outages in Greece, and wildfires in Spain. Through structured stakeholder engagement combining surveys, workshops, and online consultations, the study identified seven categories of policy support results; twelve impacts spanning technology adoption, policy process enhancement, public administration capacity, and citizen empowerment; nine facilitators across financial, organisational, legal, and technical dimensions; and eight frustrators assessed through a risk matrix. These elements were structured into Impact Pathways, visualising causal relationships among policy support tools, enabling factors, and transformation outcomes. Four Transition Scenarios were derived, aligned with the policy lifecycle stages of inception, negotiation, set-up, and operation, accompanied by fifteen actionable policy recommendations classified by thematic area, timeframe, and stakeholder responsibility. The findings reveal that evidence-based policies represent a central transformation target across all result categories, while effective stakeholder engagement and leadership commitment emerge as cross-cutting enablers. The integrated framework contributes to digital governance research by operationalising co-creation for strategic roadmap development and offers practitioners a decision-support tool for planning digital technology-assisted policymaking transformations. Full article

Efforts to build a sociobiodiversity-based bioeconomy increasingly depend on recognizing and rewarding the stewardship practices carried out by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities, and smallholder farmers. Yet, such practices, rooted in collective governance, traditional knowledge, and care for ecosystems, remain largely invisible in market and policy frameworks. This study compares recognition mechanisms for stewardship practices worldwide (38 case studies) and in Brazilian projects supporting sociobiodiversity chains (384 projects) using an inductive typology of material and non-material recognition and Arnstein’s Ladder of Citizen Participation. Results show that 70% of cases combine multiple recognition forms, but their distribution and empowerment outcomes diverge. Globally, recognition mechanisms are more balanced, often codified in laws, participatory councils, and payment-for-ecosystem-service schemes that place communities on the upper rungs of Arnstein’s ladder, with co-management authority. In Brazilian projects, recognition remains predominantly material and focused on short-term interventions–capacity-building, equipment, and market access, corresponding to lower rungs of citizen participation. Overcoming this condition requires policies that couple economic incentives with institutionalized participation. Markets alone will not value the non-material elements that sustain sociobiodiversity. Implementing Brazil’s National Bioeconomy Strategy will therefore depend on public policies that reward both the products and the collective stewardship behind them. Full article

Public participation in Global South urban regeneration often exhibits a “high-commitment—low-conversion” gap between institutional intent and effective citizen influence. Taking Guangzhou, China, as a case, this study develops a Policy design–Implementation–Evaluation (P–I–E) framework to examine participation across the policy life cycle. We review 48 municipal policy documents (2009–2024) to code 34 participation elements, link them to implementation rates of 798 projects across 11 districts, and triangulate outcomes using a survey of 1000 residents. By operationalizing Arnstein’s ladder into an index and introducing an expert-scored Design Completeness (DC) measure, we identify a participation gradient in which refined, enforceable provisions cluster in ex post compliance, while early-stage agenda-setting remains weak. The persistent conversion gap is explained by contrasting governance mechanisms: procedural participation is administratively legible and low-cost to implement, whereas empowerment requires enforceable decision interfaces, multi-actor coordination, and closed-loop accountability. Empirically, symbolic instruments achieve high implementation, while power-sharing elements are rarely enacted; substantive co-creation bundled with early empowerment and feedback mechanisms is associated with higher resident satisfaction and greater uptake of citizen input. Strengthening legally binding decision interfaces and accountability infrastructures is therefore critical for advancing substantive participation. Full article

Citizen participation has been fundamental in the design and management of public spaces in Valencia over the last decade, promoting spatial justice. Models such as co-creation through participatory budgeting, self-management and social mobilisation have proven their effectiveness. This article focuses on the study of Valencia’s DecidimVLC digital platform, analysing its influence on participatory budgeting over ten years, since its launch in 2015. The research delves into a participatory project with high media coverage focused on the children’s area of Plaza del Cedro, a neighbourhood park with high community involvement. The results are structured in two sections. On the one hand, a general analysis of the DecidimVLC platform is carried out, examining the types of projects it has promoted. On the other, it provides a specific assessment of the results through the case study of the children’s green area, evaluating the impact of direct interaction with the administration on spatial justice and social cohesion. The study confirms that digital tools such as DecidimVLC are a key vehicle for citizen ‘empowerment’, promoting a more equitable and participatory vision of the city. Full article

Opportunities for citizens to become prosumers have grown rapidly with renewable energy (RE) technologies reaching grid parity. The European Union’s ability to harness this potential depends on empowering energy citizens, fostering active engagement, and overcoming resistance to RE deployment. European energy law introduced “renewable self-consumers” and “active customers” with rights to consume, sell, store, and share RE, alongside rights for citizens collectively organised in energy communities. This article explores conditions for inclusive citizen engagement and empowerment within the RE system. Building on an ownership- and governance-oriented approach, we further develop the concept of energy citizenship, focusing on three elements: conditions for successful engagement, individual versus collective (financial) participation, and the role of public (co-)ownership in fostering inclusion. The analysis is supported by 82 semi-structured interviews, corroborating our theoretical lens. Findings show that participation, especially of vulnerable consumers, relies on an intact “engagement chain,” while energy communities remain an underused instrument for inclusion. Institutional environments enabling municipalities and public entities to act as pace-making (co-)owners are identified as key. Complementing the market and the State, civil society holds important potential to enhance engagement. Inspired by the 2017 European Pillar of Social Rights, we propose a corresponding “European Pillar of Energy Rights.” Full article

Using the Danjiangkou Reservoir resettlement as a case study, this research adopts a policy lifecycle perspective to examine the evolutionary mechanisms of livelihood transformation and institutional adaptation under large-scale hydraulic development. The findings reveal that China’s resettlement governance is not merely an economic practice of resource redistribution and livelihood reconstruction but a deeper process of institutional learning and social reconfiguration. The transformation of Danjiangkou migrants—from administrative dependence to self-organized recovery and finally to development empowerment—reflects a structural shift in governance logic from control-oriented mobilization to collaborative and inclusive modernization. The study elucidates the dynamic interaction between institutional supply and social agency, arguing that the state acts not only as a resource provider but as an institutional recalibrator that fosters endogenous governance capacity through social self-organization. The identity transformation of migrants—from excluded subjects to integrated citizens—demonstrates that recognition, participation, and social capital are central to achieving social justice and sustainable governance. Practically, sustainable resettlement requires institutional flexibility and social empowerment, emphasizing long-term capacity building over short-term relief. The Danjiangkou experience reveals the deeper logic of Chinese modernization—a transition from control to collaboration, from survival to development, and from outsiders to citizens—offering valuable insights for equitable and resilient resettlement governance. Full article

The mitigation of natural hazards is a persistent challenge in Chile, where recurrent events such as summer forest fires and winter floods cause severe material and human losses. Municipalities, as key actors in disaster management, often face difficulties due to fragmented territorial information and the lack of standardized tools to support decision-making. This study applies the Land Administration Domain Model (ISO 19152) International Standard to design a multipurpose cadastre adapted to the Chilean context. The methodological approach integrates cadastral data with hazard and risk information, structuring it into standardized sub-packages that facilitate spatial analysis, interoperability, and municipal planning. The proposed model demonstrates its capacity to identify risk-prone areas, link property units with hazard data, and generate reliable inputs for disaster risk reduction plans. A prototype decision-support panel illustrates how the integration of cadastral and risk data can improve access to territorial information and support local governance. The contribution of this research is twofold: first, it establishes a standardized framework for territorial information management based on ISO 19152; second, it provides municipalities with a practical tool to strengthen disaster preparedness and response, promoting more resilient and sustainable communities. Full article

This qualitative study investigates how local project managers interpret the concept of participation when implementing participatory processes under the Emilia-Romagna (Italy) regional framework. Drawing on 41 in-depth interviews with project managers and key personnel from participatory initiatives funded between 2020 and 2024, the research examines how these actors interpret the concept of participation and how their views align with regional objectives. Thematic analysis reveals that participation is widely viewed as a process of shared responsibility, co-decision, empowerment, and active citizenship. Participants described participation as both a political and relational act, involving co-responsibility, information exchange, and commitment to the common good. While many embraced a transformative vision of participation, others highlighted institutional constraints and the risk of participation being reduced to rhetoric. Additionally, gendered differences emerged in the way participants framed participation, with women emphasizing relational and care-based dimensions, and men focusing more on agency and power. The findings suggest that participation, when meaningfully enacted, is seen as a driver of democratic engagement and institutional trust, but it requires a sustained effort to go beyond procedures and enable genuine collaboration between institutions and citizens. Full article

The article explores how pro-environmental action relates to knowledge processes and fosters transformative changes in vulnerable settings. Drawing on eleven pro-environmental initiatives in five countries (Bulgaria, Hungary, Portugal, Romania and Türkiye), the study focuses on locally embedded actions responding to environmental threats, biodiversity loss and traditional practices. Based on 71 semi-structured interviews with citizens, we captured how environmental stewardship is shaped through lived experience, situated knowledge and shifting roles of actors under variable, often adverse governance conditions. We found that knowledge emerges as a co-produced and relational process, blending scientific, traditional, experiential and process-related knowledge. This supports participation and legitimacy and enables transformative (or behavioural) change. Transformative outcomes appear as behavioural shifts, self-empowerment, increased community agency and broader societal signals evolving from participation. The article contributes to the debate on sustainability transformation as it showcases potentially uncharted factors in current sustainability transition studies, i.e., emotional, political and relational dimensions of local pro-environmental actions in vulnerable settings. Even if systemic conditions limit transformative processes, this practical knowledge might be scaled up or adapted to other local or regional contexts to confront dominant socio-economic models and propose more inclusive, just and sustainable alternatives. Full article

Human energy production and consumption have significantly contributed to the environmental crisis, impacting human health, wellbeing, and social justice. In this context, the concept of energy citizenship has emerged, referring to civic engagement in fostering sustainable and democratic energy systems and transitions. Under the Horizon Europe project EnergyPROSPECTS (PROactive Strategies and Policies for Energy Citizenship Transformation), we investigated the conditions and dynamics that promote or hinder energy citizenship and empower citizens to contribute to sustainable energy transformations. Through 44 in-depth interviews and four deliberative workshops in four European case study regions with individuals and organizations engaged in different forms of energy citizenship, we identified key psychological and organizational factors driving citizen empowerment. These findings informed the development of an interactive empowerment toolkit, a digital learning resource designed to enhance energy citizenship literacy and skills. This toolkit, although primarily targeting adults interested in energy citizenship, is adaptable for students and educators at various levels, offering two tracks: one for beginners with no prior involvement in the exercise of energy citizenship, and another for those with experience in energy activism. We highlight the scientific basis of the toolkit, detailing its components and demonstrating its application in fostering energy citizenship empowerment. The tool aims to equip users with the skills and knowledge necessary to actively participate in sustainable energy transitions. Full article

Snakebite is a high-priority neglected tropical disease, and a strategic goal based on four pillars has been recommended to reduce mortality and morbidity. One is empowering rural communities through citizen science, education, and engagement. In this study, an integrative approach was used to expand our knowledge of Micrurus nigrocinctus status and characterize its venom. Using citizen science data and field visits to local communities, 99 records of M. nigrocinctus distributed in Antioquia, Chocó, and Córdoba were obtained. Children, young people, and adults recognized M. nigrocinctus as the most common coral snake species in their region, and two specimens were recovered for venomic and Phylogenetic analyses. The M. nigrocinctus venom from Colombia exhibited similar chromatographic and electrophoretic profiles and biological activities and shared nearly identical protein families with Costa Rica. Commercial coral snake antivenoms also recognized and neutralized the whole venom from both countries. However, phylogenetic relationships showed greater divergence with specimens from Costa Rica. Involving communities helps prevent coral snake bites and facilitates access to rare specimens such as M. nigrocinctus, thereby enabling venom analyses, improving antivenom evaluation, and advancing toxinology research for medically significant species. Full article

Fulfilling the requirements of the EU’s Nature Restoration Law in urban areas will require not only planning and administrative action but also citizen engagement. The paper at hand analyzes citizens’ willingness to change the urban environment in a study consisting of a pan-European survey with an integrated choice experiment. The majority of the 7045 respondents would support a rapid urban greening process and are willing to contribute to its financing. The latent class analysis reveals four different classes with different interests and willingness to engage: Class 1 supports the development of green areas and nature-based solutions in general and under nearly any conditions; Class 2 is sensitive to costs and accessibility disruption. For Class 3, participation will increase their interest and willingness to pay. Only Class 4 (8.6% of sample respondents) is against or disinterested in the development of urban greening. The findings demonstrate that the European goals are strongly supported by the majority of urban residents and highlight a significant interest in their implementation, to which they are also willing to contribute. These findings should encourage local initiatives and the local administration to implement the process of urban greening and the goals of the nature restauration law in a more ambitious manner. Full article