At Involve, we bring you regular updates from across our work. If you'd like to be the first to receive the latest direct to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter here.
🕛 Average overall reading time: approx 6 minutes.
Here's what's new:
🎨 NG Citizens gets underway! (Stay up to date here)
🙋 What would it take to make a community safe for everyone? (Read more here)
🎷 How citizens are shaping a new cultural plan for the West of England (Read about the citizens' assembly here)
🚌 Can people with opposing views on transport come together to find common ground? (Read more here)
💧 Shaping Lough Neagh's future together: co-design group takes shape (Follow the work here)
🤝 How can we ensure relationships between academia, policy makers and the public are built to last? (Read the blog here)
At Involve, we bring you regular updates from across our work. If you'd like to be the first to receive the latest direct to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter here.
🎨 NG Citizens gets underway
Last month saw the beginning of NG Citizens: a citizens’ assembly on the future of The National Gallery, followed by a 4-year citizens’ panel to help make that future a reality.
The assembly is made up of 50 members from all over the UK, most of whom have never visited The National Gallery. Their task over the next five months is to answer the question: “What do you want from the UK’s National Gallery? How can it bring people and paintings together in authentic and meaningful ways, now and for the future?”
👉 At the first session, the assembly focused on getting to know each other and the Gallery, building on their existing experiences of art and culture in their everyday lives. Members talked about paintings that mean something to them, heard from staff about the Gallery’s past and present, and went on tours to understand how the Gallery’s spaces feel today.
They then began to build their vision for the future of the Gallery, using guided visualisation and modelling, before choosing which contested issues they want to hear more about at future sessions. These included knotty questions such as “can art ever be open to everyone?” and will form the assembly’s focus at the next session this weekend.
👉 Read more and follow the process here
🙋 What would it take to make our communities safe for everyone?
Thousands of women and girls plan their routes home not for convenience, but for safety. Harassment, intimidation and fear in public spaces aren’t isolated incidents, nor are they limited to outside spaces: they’re part of a wider culture that impacts all of us.
That’s why we’re working with Maidstone Borough Council to deliver Maidstone Together: A Community Discussion on ending Violence Against Women and Girls. It’s a bold, community-led approach to designing safer streets, workplaces, and public and online spaces.
By starting with ‘enclave discussions’ organised by gender and fully inclusive of trans and non-binary residents, the process will create safe spaces where people can share experiences openly. These will then feed into wider discussions, giving everyone a voice in shaping solutions.
The recommendations will directly influence the borough’s VAWG strategy, spanning urban planning, licensing, education and community safety initiatives.
Change starts with people, and we’re looking for a diverse range of voices from across Maidstone to take part. If you live in or have connections in Maidstone, please share this opportunity with your networks – interested residents can find out more and sign up here.
👉 Read more here
Know someone who'd be a great fit? Please share this opportunity with your networks by using our comms toolkit here.
🎷 Citizens shaping a new cultural plan
A groundbreaking citizens’ assembly to shape a new cultural plan for the West of England has now completed its work. Over several months, we’ve supported partners to design and facilitate a process in which 52 people from across Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire explored the question: “What would culture and creativity look like in the West of England if they were for everyone?”.
Next, a Citizen Oversight Panel drawn from Assembly members will oversee implementation of the Assembly’s action plan and help ensure citizen-led decision-making continues, with outcomes shared with the Mayor and the wider cultural sector at an event in early 2026.
Find out more and follow the next steps on the Citizens for Culture website here.
🚌 Can people with opposing views on transport come together to find common ground?
Photo credit: Gary Manhine - Hackney Council
"All of us are Hackney residents, so what happens with the roads, with the traffic, if affects us at the end of the day".
November saw the final workshop of our deliberative workshops on Hackney's main roads - a collaboration with LSE Cities and the London Borough of Hackney that shows how to break through transport gridlock.
Over four sessions, we brought together a diverse group of local people with different backgrounds and views. Together they heard from expert speakers, explored the issues in depth, and worked to develop a set of guiding principles that will now shape Hackney's Transport Strategy for the next decade.
Look out for the full report from these workshops launching in the coming weeks. In the meantime, you can read more about the project here.
👉 Read more about it here
And hear from Hackney residents on what it was like to take part in this work here 👇
💧 Shaping Lough Neagh's future together: co-design group takes shape
Lough Neagh faces an ecological crisis that demands new approaches to decision-making. That's why we're exploring what a citizens' assembly could do to help restore and sustain the Lough's future.
A co-design group has now been formed to help shape how such an assembly could work in practice, ensuring it reflects the voices and priorities of those connected to the Lough.
The group brings together a wide range of perspectives – from local residents and environmental campaigners to tourism operators, academics, water and statutory bodies, and community organisations – all with different relationships to the Lough. Their first meeting takes place on 10 December and over the coming months, they will work through key questions including how to frame the assembly's central question, what evidence and expertise to draw on, and how to ensure participation is fair, representative and takes all perspectives into account.
👉 Stay up to date with this work here
🤝 Only as strong as the ground beneath us
Collaborations between academia, policymakers and communities can transform local decisions, so how do we make sure these relationships are built to last?
As part of our work supporting the LPIP network, Involve Engagement Lead Ciaran Cummins reflects on a recent YPIP event, exploring what it really takes for collaborations between academics, policymakers and communities to last, rather than becoming one‑off exercises that can erode trust. He focuses on the ‘ground beneath’ these relationships – including time to build trust, shared spaces and resources, and links with wider movements.
👉 Read the blog here
🚀 Training to support better participation
Looking to sharpen your skills in public engagement, facilitation or deliberation? Our training offer is there to help.
We provide training on areas from public engagement strategy, planning and commissioning engagement, facilitation skills and delivering high quality public engagement. All of it is grounded in over two decades of designing and delivering processes that work for both commissioning organisations and the people they’re trying to engage.
If you’d like to explore training for your team or partners, you can find out more on our website or get in touch with us.
That's all for now! Thank you as always for your ongoing support.
Best wishes,
The Involve Team