Towards more effective CSO strategies - Action Town Final Conference
14-15 March 2011 in London
Under the title “Smart CSOs Conference” the Action Town project organises its final conference on 14-15 March 2011 in London. Due to the magnitude of the global environmental and social crises and the lack of progress in tackling them, there is a need for civil society organisations (CSOs) to reconsider their strategies in support of a transition to a sustainable economy and society. A select group of invited civil society leaders, researchers, experts and funders will come together to discuss ideas and practical ways forward for more effective CSO strategies.
Key questions to be explored at the conference are:
- What insights can help CSOs to understand much better how a socio- technical transition to a sustainable economy can happen?
- What role do societal values play in social change towards a sustainable society and what can CSOs learn from cognitive science? How can CSOs use bottom-up approaches to experiment and practice with the new economic models and un-lock policy processes?
- What capacity building, knowledge transfer programmes and new research are needed to support CSOs in developing more effective strategies? How can we engage funders in CSO strategies towards systemic change and in new collaborative research that can strengthen the role CSOs play in the Great Transition?
This conference is the final event of the Action Town Project funded by the European Commission’s 7th Research Framework Programme. The conference will build on the background paper entitled ‘Effective change strategies for the Great Transition - Five leverage points for civil society organisations’ that is currently developed by the project team under the lead of WWF-UK and external collaborators. In addition, collaborative pilot projects currently undertaken by Action Town partners CSCP, ECODES, Green Liberty, MAMA-86, SEI, SERI and TTGV to foster the knowledge exchange between CSOs and researchers in practice will be discussed at the conference.
For more information about the Action Town Project see
