How should we arrange energy production sustainably? How can we ensure democratic and socially equitable decision-making on energy alternatives? And, how can post-industrial sites be revitalized for further use? SCENE2050 Twitter conference on the 17th of May 2019 will explore these questions and results will be discussed and elaborated in an on-site workshop to be held in Raahe Finland on the 24-25th of May.
Both the Twitter conference and the on-site event are organized by EU H2020 project SIMRA (Social Innovation in Marginal Rural Areas, http://www.simra-h2020.eu/) in collaboration with a grassroots initiative Cooperative Noidanlukko (https://noidanlukko.wordpress.com/).
SCENE2050 Twitter conference will focus especially on the potential role of social innovation in identifying and discussing novel ideas on how to enhance sustainability of energy production. According to SIMRA definition social innovations are reconfigurations of networks, attitudes and governance in response to societal challenges. Social innovations seek to enhance human well-being and include the engagement of civil society actors.
The Twitter conference focuses on the year 2050 in order to break conventional thinking and to free minds for visioning sustainable futures. The conference also takes stock of surprises or disruptive events that may change the logic shaping the future in 2050. Future oriented thinking is encouraged to tease out possible solutions for current and imminent challenges.
If you are interested in having a Twitter presentation in the event, please contact Simo Sarkki at simo.sarkki@oulu.fi with the title of your presentation by the 10th of May.
Conference themes: revitalization of renewable energy alternatives, democratic decision-making, and post-industrial sites
We invite scientists, policy makers, business actors and civil society actors to give Twitter presentations under one of the three themes:
1) Visions on alternatives for nuclear power in energy production in 2050 with a focus on the role of social innovation. Examples could cover but are by no means restricted to forms of decentralized energy production, community ownership of the energy companies, networks to share new technologies and solutions, renewable small-scale energy solutions, ways and attitudes to reduce energy consumption, community-business partnerships, innovative technologies, and etc.
2) Visions on how to organize decision-making on energy production in 2050 with the focus on the role of social innovation. Examples could cover but are by no means restricted to grassroots initiatives, transformation processes towards sustainability, planning and policy processes, science-policy-society-business networks, novel solutions enhancing direct democracy, polycentric governance structures, bottom-up processes, use of art in shaping the future, and etc.
3) Visions for revitalization of post-industrial sites in 2050 with the focus on social innovation. Presentations could cover, but are by no means restricted to tourism on post-industrial sites, cultural heritage initiatives, re-greening of the sites, new forms of production, education related usages, social and community use of the sites, and etc.
In addition, each presentation includes one tweet on a surprising or disruptive event that could take place in the future and that will impact on the topic of the presentation in 2050.
Schedule and practicalities
Presentations consist of 5-10 tweets including possibility to link tweets to figures, papers and www pages. One tweet is max 280 characters with spaces.
The presentations will take place on Twitter on the 17th of May starting at 12AM (GMT+2).
Local high school students from Raahe and Pyhäjoki region will have possibility to comment and present visions on twitter.
The results of the twitter conference will be discussed and elaborated in the workshop at Raahe library, 24-25th May 2019.
After the workshop, visions will be reported via e-report, and scientific publications. Also, questions raised during the workshop will be tried to be covered in post-workshop Tweets.
If you are interested in having a Twitter presentation in the event, please contact Simo Sarkki at simo.sarkki@oulu.fi with the title of your presentation by the 10th of May.
Speakers should have a personal Twitter account to tweet the presentation from. Presentations will follow a fixed program but can be scheduled beforehand to automatically be published at the right time. However, speakers are hoped to be able to answer question and comment tweets about their presentation in real time during the twitter conference between 12 am – 15 pm, 17th May 2019 (GMT +2).
Speakers will receive detailed guidelines and technical help!
Any questions related to the technicalities of the Twitter conference can be directed to annina.vahera-chibnik@oulu.fi and simo.kekalainen@oulu.fi.
Overview of the related on-site workshop
A new nuclear power plant is under licensing process planned to be built in Pyhäjoki, Finland. However, nuclear power is a contested form of energy production. On the one hand, some argue that nuclear power production should be furthered, though recent studies show, how renewable energy is possible, safer and more economic than fossil fuel dependent nuclear energy. On the other hand, many consider nuclear power as “dirty energy” and propose renewable alternatives for energy production. Decision-making on the forms of energy production is complex and includes many aspirations: should citizens be more engaged to decision making? What should be the role of science in decision-making? How much power should businesses have in decision-making? Finally, former nuclear power plants and other post-industrial sites pose needs for restoration and visioning on how these sites could be revitalized and used.
The workshop discusses the above questions in Raahe library on the 24-25th of May. The workshop agenda is under planning, but it aims to combine many ways of operation including presentations by experts and concerned citizens, interactive discussions, twitter conference results, visions by youth, story-telling, and art performances.
The two-day event is structured as follows:
24th of May 2019: Alternatives for energy production, decision-making and revitalization of post-industrial sites in 2050
25th of May 2019: Exploring ways for citizen empowerment
Organizers
University of Oulu
Researcher Simo Sarkki (https://www.oulu.fi/university/researcher/simo-sarkki).
Coordination of the Twitter conference by Simo Kekäläinen and Annina Vahera-Chibnik from Tellus Arena.
The idea for the Twitter conference was generated by Jouko Inkeröinen.
Noidanlukko Cooperative, especially Tiina Prittinen & Lea Launokari.
Noidanlukko cooperative is a grassroots network and platform for documenting, communicating and sharing knowledge on environmental and social impacts of nuclear power plant in Pyhäjoki, Finland. Noidanlukko combines activism, art, science and journalism in its activities, and manages Hanhikivi Information Center. Noidanlukko served as a case study on social innovation in EU H2020 project SIMRA.