We had a talk with Johanna Höffken (TUE) who is currently managing the “Drivers and Indicators of Engagement” subgroup within the BRIDGE H2020 initiative.

Dear Johanna, you have recently started to manage the “Drivers and indicators of engagement” subgroup, within the BRIDGE H2020 initiative. Could you tell us a bit more about this subgroup and the involvement of MUSE GRIDS in it?

With our MUSE GRIDS project we contribute to different tasks and working groups within BRIDGE. One of the working groups is consumer and citizens engagement.

In this working group we focus on different aspects of engagement. Since last year I lead the work on drivers, strategies and indicators of engagement.

It is very inspiring work – as people from different H2020 projects come together and pool their knowledge.

For example we think about how engagement (and strategies) change over time ; and we ask who the groups and people actually are whom we want to engage. This is necessary, as the way we engage small communities will differ from the way we work with industry or in urban settings, for example.

Within MUSE GRIDS engagement is a central focus – and through BRIDGE we can both learn and share our expertise with other projects and the European Commission.

Could you briefly describe the different clusters in which you will work?

In the subgroup which I lead we have decided to structure our work according to three focus clusters:

• The first cluster is investigating what different user types can be identified and what is known about different drivers for engagement per user type.
• The second cluster is looking into the different engagement strategies and the need for adaptation of engagement strategies per user type.
• And thethird cluster analyses the different engagement indicators and the need to adapt indicators depending on the project phase.

Since the different topics of the clusters are closely related, the clusters stay connected to learn from each other’s findings.

Which are the first milestones you intend to achieve?

There is a wealth of knowledge within the different energy projects that are part of BRIDGE. This is why BRIDGE aims to make use of this knowledge as much and effectively as possible. Through this we are able to inform EU policy on how to improve and guide policy making.

Our subgroup is currently working on two surveys with which we aim to learn about engagement approaches that are taking place in BRIDGE projects.

The first is the compact survey, consisting of multiple choice questions that will be sent to all BRIDGE projects.

I am already looking forward to the data we will collect – as they will tell us so much about strategies, user types, and how engagement changes over time! These insights will be complemented by a second survey, which is more qualitative and in-depth.

All our findings will be presented to the European Commission as an input for their policy making. But we also aim to present these results in a format that is more accessible for everyone, so not only policy makers. I will not tell you yet what exactly we have in mind – but it will be really fun, special and engaging!