Dr Jack Nicholls and students from the University have spent the past two years working with Bristol City Council on a vital community development project.
Dr Nicholls was invited to create a proposal for evaluating the Community Resilience Fund (CRF), a £4 million capital grant designed to refurbish community buildings and other assets in the city’s most in-need areas.
It was designed to support community and voluntary organisations to recover from the pandemic, increase their sustainability and continue the important work they do in the long-term.
The full report and an executive summary have now been released. Of the project, Jack said:
‘I’m thrilled to share the insights from this large and complex decision-making process, hoping to inform future experiments in deliberative and participatory democracy’.
The CRF used a deliberative democratic approach to allocate the funding, bringing together councillors and residents to decide which proposals would receive support.
Leading the evaluation, Jack collaborated with community development consultancy Vivid Regeneration and students from the University, supported by our Professional Liaison Network.