contributions to the field
We're about learning, sharing, continuous improvement and reinvesting in the field we love through research, advocacy and idea development.
Giving back
Each year, a portion of our time is spent exploring best practice for the sector and drawing together networks of leaders in the field.
Additionally, we occasionally undertake pro-bono work in order to support community groups and social issues of importance to us.
Democracy beyond elections handbook
The newDemocracy Foundation and the United Nations Democracy Fund are working together on a project built around doing democracy differently. Making democracies more inclusive requires bold and innovative reforms to bring the young, the poor, and minorities into the political system to start to address the crisis of political representation which sees people becoming less and less engaged.
MosaicLab was honoured to be a contributer to the ‘Democracy Beyond Elections’ handbook. This resource has been designed to show how nations at various levels of development can apply the principles of representation and deliberation in ways that are appropriate for their economic and educational circumstances.
This handbook is now available to read online here, and available for download here. More information about this project can be found here.
IAP2 QUALITY ASSURANCE STANDARD
MosaicLab directors Keith Greaves and Kimbra White were part of the working group to develop the IAP2 Quality Assurance Standard for community and stakeholder engagement.
The document describes the important elements of any community engagement process and offers a set of ‘standardised principles’ to ensure consistency in quality and support those carrying out the process. It also allows any process to be audited against a defined standard for simpler evaluation and quality assurance.
““You’ll never know everything about anything, especially something you love.”
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CRITICAL THINKING RESEARCH
This research, which commenced in 2016, was a joint project with partner Dr. Lyn Carson of Deliberative Designs. The study sought to understand what happens when participants have an opportunity to build and use critical thinking skills during a deliberative engagement process such as a citizens’ jury or people’s panel.
Critical thinking activities developed in a university context were applied to participants in MosaicLab-facilitated deliberative processes. With oversight from Dr. Carson, MosaicLab experimented with various critical thinking exercises, with a particular focus on participants’ ability to effectively interrogate experts.
We’re very pleased to announce that, we were awarded the IAP2 Australasia Core Values Award for Research in 2018. We feel very honoured to have had this exciting work recognised in this way.
To celebrate, we’re providing everyone with all the digital resources and materials that have been produced to date as a result of this work.
EMBEDDING DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY
With the assistance of Dr Karen Cronin (formerly Environmental Science and Research (ESR) Ltd, New Zealand), MosaicLab co-founder Kimbra White developed the concept for and project-managed this joint research project between ESR and the International Association for Public Participation.
The report aimed to enhance democratic governance through a scoping project to identify how deliberative democracy can be embedded in decision-making organisations in government, industry and the community.
The findings of this joint research project was presented to the newDemocracy Foundation and the University of Western Sydney in March 2012.
Download the report →