G-PaTRA final event – Influencers Summit
As the project draws to a close, G-PaTRA held its final event on the Scottish island of Orkney. The G-PaTRA project team invited several ‘influencers’ from their respective regions to the island to discuss the findings of the project and workshop some potential solutions from 8th – 10th May 2023. The G-Patra Influencer Summit was originally planned for September 2021, but was postponed until May 2023 due to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Twenty-eight people were in attendance at the event.
Tom Inns from Cofink facilitated the two-day event, leading the group through getting to know each other and the work that had been done for G-PaTRA since its inception in 2017, to an activity on Rackwick beach which involved coming up with scenarios for green passenger transport in a rural island context.
The event began on the evening of the 8th of May at The Orkney Distillery in Kirkwall, which produces Kirkjuvagr Orkney Gin. David Gray (Principle Investigator) of RGU (G-PaTRA lead partner) set the scene with introductions to the project and an overview of the event.
Next, facilitator Tom led the group through a ‘trees of knowledge’ activity, which sought to quickly build a deep understanding of the background, experience, interests and passions of a diverse group of people who may want to collaborate with on future projects.
After which came a quickfire series of presentations in Pecha Kucha style. The format allows twenty slides of twenty seconds each, and it challenged the partners to put across a great deal of activity (G-PaTRA has been running for six years) in a concise way.
The group discussed their aims for the summit, setting down on paper what they wanted to get out of the following 24 hours in order to focus efforts. The key aims coming through from this discussion were:
- An insight into future scenarios;
- An understanding of the Influencer perspective (and how it is evolving);
- Unpacking what we mean by scaling;
- What can we share about behavioural change – is this a universal challenge?;
- Explore new perspectives.
- What are the buzzwords that win funding in 2023 – is it now all about 15 minute neighbourhoods?
Attendees returned to their accommodation for the night to mull these questions over and met, refreshed, at the RGU Orkney Research and Innovation Campus (ORIC) in Stromness. The morning activities focussed on impacts across G-PaTRA activities in the following four areas: people, planet, place and policy. Next the group turned their focus to how those impacts could be scaled across the four areas by 2030. The following activity focussed on overcoming barriers. The group highlighted the following barriers and discussed ideas to overcome them: behavioural, policy, financial, place/local.
Finally, the group moved to Rackwick Beach on the isle of Hoy. The journey to the beach provided participants with much needed opportunity and time to informally discuss following the packed timetable of organised activities. Participants were given the challenge of thinking about future rural public transport in Orkney/Hoy as a focus for their discussions. On Rackwick beach, informal presentations were made from each group.
More information about the event, summaries of the discussions and some key findings are available in Tom Inns report. Further final outputs from the event and from the project as a whole will be made available on the website when they are published.