Dr. Patricia McHugh, Dr. Veronica McCauley & Dr. Kevin Davison presented this seminar on Collective Intelligence - An Innovative Research Approach to Promoting Ocean Literacies in Ireland under the Sea Change project. They spoke on behalf of the Social Innovation, Participation and Policy Cluster (SIPPs) as part of the Whitaker Institute's Ideas Forum on 5th May 2016.

1. Collective Intelligence – An Innovative Research
Approach to Promoting Ocean Literacies in Ireland
Dr. Christine Domegan, Dr. Patricia McHugh, Dr. Veronica McCauley & Dr. Kevin Davison
Social Innovation, Participation and Policy Cluster (SIPPs)
Thursday, 5th May 2016

2. Outline for Innovative Approaches to
Promoting Ocean Literacies in Ireland
(and Europe)
Seachange (H2020 project)
Social Innovation Participation and Policy (SIPPs)
Social Innovation in Education
Collective Intelligence
Micro- and Macro- Pedagogies

3. What is Sea Change?
Sea Change is a three-year EU H2020 funded project
that aims to establish a fundamental “Sea Change” in the way
European citizens view their relationship with the sea,
by empowering them, as Ocean Literate citizens,
to take direct and sustainable action
towards a healthy ocean and seas,
healthy communities and
ultimately a healthy planet

4. €3.5M (€300K to NUIG); 36 months;
17 partners from 9 different countries

5. An Ocean-Literate person:
• Understands the importance of the ocean to humankind
• Can communicate about the ocean in a meaningful way
• Is able to help us make informed and responsible decisions
regarding the ocean and its resources

6. Science Outreach Strategies
Many science outreach programs are based on a “Deficit
model”, which assumes that increasing
awareness/knowledge will result in desired behavioural
change
…These approaches ignore the array of influences on
behaviours that may arise from interactions between
stakeholders
(Domegan et al., 2010)

7. Social Innovation Participation and Policy
(SIPPs)…
SIPPs researches pressing
societal problems
SIPPs looks for community
and collective initiatives
that bring about positive
social change
SIPPs seeks to understand
interactions

8. Why the Need for SIPPs in Sea Change?
Nalumu Elizabeth Eleiton, Rebecca Corless and Stephen Hynes conducted a
Review on the Public Perceptions of Marine Environmental Issues in 2015

9. Findings from the Review
The marine environment is very important for human wellbeing
for its provisioning, regulating and supporting services
However, increased population and human activities are putting
a strain on it and threatening its sustainability
A top-down approach to management of the marine
environment has not always been successful creating a need for
an ecosystem based approach, and more public engagement

10. Findings from the Review
The ecosystem approach takes into account public perception
and encourages agencies to consider the public when making
decisions in order to have public participation or ‘buy in’ to the
various policies/strategies to management of the resource
Humans are an important component of the ecosystem and
understanding their attitudes towards the marine environment is
vital to the success of marine strategies
Therefore, Social Innovation and its approaches are needed to
understand and achieve societal change

12. Social Innovation underpins Sea Change
Education
Citizen
Science
Governance
SIPPs

13. Five SIPP Principles in Sea Change
Creative
Principle
Collective
Principle
Competitive
Principle
Client
Principle
Change
Principle

14. Client
Principle
Says to know, to
really know, your
target group(s)

15. Competitive
Principle
Leads you to pay attention to
other choices and alternatives

16. Collective
Principle
Shows how we cannot
separate ourselves from
our environment

17. Creative
Principle
Tells us to seek
imaginative and
innovative solutions

18. Change
Principle
Directs us to value
co-creation to close
value-action gaps

19. Innovative Approaches being used in
Sea Change
Education
Citizen
Science
Governance
Collective Intelligence
Ideas Bank
Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping
A Collective
Impact
Assessment
Framework

20. Social Innovation for Education
Social Innovation theory goes significantly beyond just
asking education groups for their opinions or what might be
called ‘participation by consultation’
Social Innovation gives key education stakeholders a voice
about the barriers to change and ownership and
responsibility for solutions to influence their welfare
COLLABORATE EMPOWER

21. Trad Qual Focus Group
Stakeholders: Teachers, Curriculum Designers,
Media, Outreach Officers, Government Agencies.
Collective Intelligence
Stakeholders: Teachers
Social Innovation for Education
Dual Stream Communication
Co-creation, multiple stakeholders,
competing interests

22. What is Collective Intelligence?
A scientific solution-seeking methodology to visualise
barriers and intervention strategies
A group decision-making process where diverse
stakeholders work collaboratively to develop a consensus
structural model of a complex social problem and consider
effective solutions

23. Facilitation process helps groups deal with complex issues – ‘wicked
problems’ through systems thinking
Empowers Sea Change’s capacity to act - due to multi-voice data
Allows for comparisons to be made between values/barriers and
across different countries
Enables mobilisation design and development with people for action
and change
Why Collective Intelligence?

24. Where is Collective Intelligence
happening?
Collective Intelligence is being run in 8 European Countries:
1. Ireland
2. United Kingdom
3. Sweden
4. Portugal
5. Spain
6. Denmark
7. Greece
8. Belgium

25. Step 1 - Generate and Clarify Ideas
In order to gain an insight into participants’ thoughts about
curricular reform in relation to marine ecology a trigger
question must be developed
The trigger question initiates thinking, reflection and discussion
Sea Change Trigger Question:
‘What are the barriers to teaching 12-19 year olds about the
Ocean?’

26. Collective Intelligence Process
H
h
Online Component

27. Collective Intelligence Process
H
h
Workshop Component

28. Images of CI Process
Second stage barrier categorisation

29. Example of a Structural Barrier Map
We can see
two paths of
aggravation in
this structural
map.
These barriers
are in a cycle,
meaning they
significantly
aggravate each
other.
The map is read from left to
right, with barriers on the left
having the most aggravation.
1
2

30. Advancing Ocean Literacies…
Our approach to advancing ocean literacies involved the
development of macro- and micro-pedagoglogical strategies:
Macro-pedagogies: Innovative, collective research
methodology leading to co-ownership of bariers and
solutions. Research process with multiple stakeholders
empowers participants act in their various capacities for
change, eg. teacher as outreach agent, or a policy maker
will bring new insight into her/his area
Micro-pedagogies: e-Books (corals, and plankton)

31. What’s Next….
All eight partner countries engage in the CI process
to generate Structural Barrier Maps
Meta-Analysis of data across all eight countries
resulting in Multi-Stage European Influence Map for
effectively advancing ocean literacy and curricular
reform

32. Collective Intelligence:
Is a research methodology that has the potential to
empower research participants by having them engage
fully in the process of investigation
Involves diverse stakeholders in the collective inquiry
process for ‘wicked problems’ to address causes
rather than solutions
Is a vehicle to overcome barriers to promote ocean
literacy in Ireland and across Europe

34. Christine.Domegan@nuigalway.ie
Patricia.McHugh@nuigalway.ie
Veronica.McCauley@nuigalway.ie
Kevin.Davison@nuigalway.ie
Questions?...