This deliverable (D) 1.3 summarizes the research findings from the project Democratising jUst Sustainability Transitions (DUST) and documents the research process undertaken during the project’s duration. Building on theoretical, conceptual, and methodological frameworks developed in work package (WP)1, research facilitated an analysis of citizen participation in place-based policymaking oriented towards just sustainability transitions in WP2 and 3, as well as the experimental testing of participatory instruments in living labs, referred to as Regional Futures Literacy Labs (RFLLs), in this context in WP4 and 5. Intermediate steps of synthesis ensured that the scope, depth, and determining factors of citizen participation that were identified during the early analytical WPs were targeted in the later experimental WPs. Against this background the main research findings that are presented in chapters of this report can be read as a consecutive elaboration of the projects’ main question: How can the delivery of place-based policies for just sustainability transitions enhance citizen participation and trust in democratic governance, especially among least-engaged communities (LECs)? ... Read more

This deliverable (D) 4.4 Evaluation and handbook of the Regional Futures Literacy Labs (RFLLs) evaluates the results of the RFLLs, which are the experimental part of the Democratising jUst Sustainability Transitions (DUST) project. The RFLLs happened in four case study regions in Norrbotten (Sweden), Katowice (Poland), Stara Zagora (Bulgaria), and Lusatia (Germany) between December 2024 and June 2025. The labs tested a novel hybrid format combining designled territorial and digital tools for the participation of least-engaged communities (LECs) in place-based sustainability transition policymaking. Engaged LECs were a rural community (Norrbotten), generations in mining families (Katowice), a community of citizens (Stara Zagora), and young people (Lusatia). The findings presented in this document elaborate to what extent the RFLL format has empowered these LECs to anticipate and envision regional structural change, how it has supported them in the building of social capital in a pluralistic and inclusive decision environment, and how it has helped the strategic and proactive positioning of their concerns in the multi-level deliberative governance of place-based sustainability transition policymaking and democratic life at scale.

In theoretical terms, the conception of RFLL format recognizes the importance of and challenges to citizen participation in place-based policymaking in the continuous, complex, and uncertain setting of sustainability transitions. Building on knowledge from the fields of public policy, spatial planning, spatial design, future studies, and democracy studies, the format emphasizes the role of anticipation and imagination, and reflexivity in the consideration of territorial, temporal, and organisation aspects of transitional development for policy learning, argumentation, and negotiation. The format also acknowledges that engaging a distinct LEC in public policymaking resembles the involvement of an ‘advocacy community’ or ‘advocacy coalition’, which requires particular attention to how community and policy fields of interest are thematically bounded, structured by narratives, and intersect. ... Read more