Take Part: active learning for active citizenship contributing to community O.R. reflections and practices

The Operational Research Society has had a longstanding interest in developing approaches to engage a wide variety of society stakeholders in meaningful ways. Community O.R. researchers have engaged in research that aims to engage communities in problem-solving processes in order to improve the organisation of our society. Despite this, many research and practice-based questions remain: What are the approaches that support communities to become and remain actively engaged in local and national decision making processes? What are the criteria of informal learning that underpin these approaches and how does this engagement as decision-makers empower groups, individual and organisations to shape & reshape the society we live in? Is ‘empowerment’ in these situations an empty word or something that can be seen happening in practice? This introduction takes a look at the Take Part National Framework for active learning for active citizenship, which The Lincolnshire Citizenship Network/CORU has been part of and reflects on some of the lessons learnt from our participation.