Participatory foresight for adaptable neighbourhoods

A useful research design separates scenario plausibility, participation quality and practical use. A scenario can be internally coherent while overlooking a group’s needs; a well-attended workshop can still produce recommendations that planners cannot apply. Each dimension therefore needs its own evaluation questions.

For this topic, a consortium could use a common assessment framework across the neighbourhoods:

• Traceable assumptions: connect each major scenario choice to observations, projections or explicitly recorded stakeholder judgments.
• Meaningful participation: examine who contributes, whose suggestions alter the scenarios, and which unresolved disagreements remain.
• Usable measures: ask local teams to apply the approach to an actual planning decision and record difficulties, revisions and resource needs.
• Capacity to revise: introduce a changed assumption during a follow-up exercise and assess whether participants can update the proposed measures consistently.

These are proposed validation choices. They make the approach assessable within a research project without claiming to observe twenty years of resilience. Indicators could track the clarity of decision responsibilities, the treatment of conflicting objectives and the usefulness of recommendations to their intended users.

Keep a common method while allowing local priorities and evidence to differ. Transferable outputs could include facilitation materials, an assumptions register, scenario templates and guidance for updating targets. Local authorities should be able to identify what they can reuse and what requires a fresh local investigation.