News

Read the latest news, blogs and reports from the UK LLC and across the longitudinal population data community.

Blog

Constellations, challenges and circular perspectives.

Dr Lidis Garbovan

11th Aug 2025

The UK LLC Citizen Panel Hybrid Workshop 2 @Edinburgh Futures Institute, 25 June 2025

Introduction

Constellation. What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word ‘constellation’? I tend to think of the stars in the sky and the star groupings or connections between them, which I love to watch on a clear, summer night (pic 1 below).

Source: Britannica.com

A quick search online shows two additional meanings:

“Constellations of power” can also describe the dynamic relationships and networks of influence within societies or organizations. In some psychological contexts, “constellations” refer to the interconnectedness of personal experiences and the potential for self-discovery and growth through understanding these connections.

These additional meanings of the concept ‘constellations’ are useful to help me reflect on the ideas shared, challenges and learnings from the 2nd UK LLC Citizen Panel Hybrid Workshop, held at the Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) on 25 June 2025.

Edinburgh Futures Institute is a beautiful, centrally located building of the University of Edinburgh, recently refurbished, with the aim of creating a new environment for transdisciplinary learning, teaching, research and engagement in partnership with communities.

When I arrived at EFI on Wednesday morning, at 9.00am, I was happy to see my colleague James, who has just parked his bicycle and was entering the main door of the building (pic 2 below).

The person with a red t-shirt entering the building is James. Robin Flaig, the Co-Director of UK LLC, had just arrived as well and she was sitting in the room upstairs. It was a nice feeling to meet the team members first thing in the morning, and I felt once again how important the team support has been for me throughout the Citizen Panel project. This was an enhanced experience compared to the 1st Citizen Panel Workshop, when I felt nearly overwhelmed with preparing for and organising it in Birmingham as reflected in another blog piece:

Picture 2 – arrival at Edinburgh Futures Institute

Source: author’s own photo

‘The preparations started in October 2024’ and I was both the lead and ‘the contact person for everything related to the Workshop. This was a huge amount of work and many times I felt nearly overwhelmed.’ (Garbovan, 2025) 

On 25 June 2025, shortly after 9.00am the Citizen Panel members started arriving at EFI in-person, as well as Jenny, the visual artist who kindly agreed to join us on the day and produce a digital visual illustration. Some of the Panel members could not join us online so they joined via Zoom, shortly before 10.00am, together with my colleague from Edinburgh, Kirsteen Campbell, who facilitated the online discussion and Andy Boyd, the Director of UK LLC, who joined for the first half of the day. For me, the Panel’s operation for the past one year has been the result of this continuous, interconnected flows of ideas, support and dedication, between UK LLC team members from both Edinburgh and Bristol, the management team, academic guidance kindly provided by Professor Sarah Cunningham-Burley and the Panel itself. This is perhaps another meaning associated with the concept ‘constellation’.

‘The key message is: Thank you’. Time, commitment and depth

Working with a citizen panel involves a substantial time commitment from both the participants and the organizers. It also involves going in depth with one group, rather than engaging a broader public.  However, this group has the opportunity to develop a deeper understanding on complex issues, which is particularly valuable when it comes to decision making.  A citizen panel also allows for more continuity in participation over long-term projects, which is often the case when it comes to innovation, facilitating follow-up and accountability. (Citizen Participation Methods for Artificial Intelligence, 2024).

Reflecting on the UK LLC Citizen Panel progress from its inception, in July 2024, I have come to understand that the time to build relationships was crucial – in a world where often time means tensions, pressures, being fast and getting things done quickly. By allowing time to do its work, and investing time into this project, I learnt for instance, how and in which circumstances, all the Citizen Panel members, except one person, decided to join us on the day of the workshop – even if some of them were on holidays and joined from a holiday cottage, or others had ongoing health issues and joined us online for as much time as they could, between doctor’s appointments, others had to take 7-8 hour long trips crossing the country to join us and a few others travelled directly to Edinburgh from other events and commitments, rather than going directly to their homes.

I have come to see even more clearly the proven commitment and enthusiasm of the Panel members to this project, their ongoing effort to join many online and in-person meetings, to do preparatory work before meetings, to provide their time despite some difficult personal circumstances and to share brilliant ideas and thoughts, from their own life and work experiences and from living across different communities. This constellation of commitment, time, shared ideas and experiences is extremely valuable and should not be overlooked.

Hence, when Andy started his message in the morning session of the workshop with the words: ‘The key message – for the Citizen Panel from UK LLC – is thank you’, I felt that indeed this is a true reflection of the Panel’s work for the last one year. Simple, honest, humble, powerful words.

In addition to these, some other ideas shared were, for instance about the value of the Citizen Panel’s work in round 1, in terms of ‘reflection and continuous work’, offering a ‘circular perspective’ and a ‘reflective model’ that is brave, innovative and valuable for longitudinal research. Responding to some of the ideas and questions from the Panel members (pic 3 below),who asked about ‘the legacy of the Citizen Panel’, Andy highlighted the importance not only of the Panel’s recommendations, which help having better processes, but how the value of its legacy is in the process itself and the Panel’s ‘way of working’: ‘The real legacy is in the shift of mindset.’

Some other ideas from the Panel to UK LLC and back, in a circular perspective, focused on the importance of partnerships and learning with other organisations, a focus on outputs and case studies to evidence good and long-standing research, putting longitudinal research into context and enhancing its added value.

Pic 3 – Snapshots of the EFI room, with Panel members who consented to photography

Digital tools and challenges

In the 2nd Citizen Panel workshop we used more digital and visual tools than in the 1st one, to help us gather perspectives, and communicate well between the Zoom room and the in-person group sitting in EFI. While some of these worked well, such as the Miro board (pic 4 below), we faced some challenges with the IT equipment in the room, for instance at the start of the meeting, when the online group could only hear the speaker standing next to the microphone and not all the Panel members in the room, sitting round a table. The EFI IT support was quick to provide help and to enable the use of a second camera and a microphone at the table, which was very helpful.

Pic 4 – Miro board

Just before the lunch break, another IT-related challenge occurred when Jenny, the visual artist, tried to share her visual illustration in progress with both the Zoom and the EFI groups (pic 5 below). After some discussion, we decided to try again after the lunch break, and it finally worked well.

Picture 5 – Challenges with the use of multiple screens and sharing Digital Visual illustration in progress, mid-day, with the Panel members

What next? The future of the Citizen Panel

In the afternoon sessions, the Panel members explored options about the future of the Citizen Panel, methodological questions about scaling up, both in numbers and in terms of content, and tackling burning questions such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) in linked longitudinal data.

In the final sessions, I tried to gather the Panel’s feelings about being a part of this project and asked them to do a short Mentimeter exercise (pic 6 below).

Pic. 6 – Mentimeter

Their answers enhanced the strong feeling that I had throughout the day, about how the Panel has come together as a constellation, a community, an ambition, to build something innovative, stimulating and relevant. The Panel’s overall facilitated discussions made a lasting impact on me and one of the first thoughts that came to my mind the next day when someone asked me: ‘how was it?’ – I simply thought: ‘Wow! The Citizen Panel has grown so much and it is now in the position to hold its future into its hands, by saying we want the Citizen Panel to continue its work and we are happy to support any efforts to secure its future.

For me the Citizen Panel has gone through different stages of development and growth, from an idea in a grant proposal, like the small root of a huge tree, attempting to grow in-between other strong structures, to being a fully grown and well-developed Panel, just like the amazing tree that I saw on my morning walk on Thursday, 10 July, when I started writing this blogpost (pic 7 below).

Source: author’s own picture

Instead of conclusion… Citizen Panels as a dissenting constellation of power

On reflection, often during this two-year project, I was asked the question: ‘What is a Citizen Panel?’ and ‘What is the UK LLC Citizen Panel?’. I tried to explain what its aims are and what kind of questions it tackled, but more recently I have come to a circular understanding of its meaning. As it often happens with a research project in arts, humanities and social sciences, the full meaning of the work done becomes clear towards the end of it.

Carsten et al. (2014) argue that different views of society can define what citizen panels are for:  seeking consensus, reflecting pluralism, or articulating marginalized voices. (Carsten et al., 2014, pg 17). The  first  philosophical  orientation  revolves  around  the  idea  of  rational consensus, where citizen  panels  are  viewed  as  methods  to  achieve consensus  about controversial  issues  through  rational  arguments  (Habermas  1995). Another  philosophical  orientation  acknowledges  pluralism among  various  societal  perspectives.  Hence, citizen  panels  mediate  and  reflect diverse  positions or  existing  controversies in  order  to  enable  collective  learning  (Evans  2000).

A  third  philosophical  orientation  fosters  a  critical  view  of  society  and  its fabric,  and  relates  to  the  notion  of  power,  and society is seen as a constellation of power. The objective of citizen panels  is  to  reveal  societal  power  structures  in  discourse,  language,  and truth regimes. The motivation for setting up citizen panels is empowerment of  the  marginalized (1998). Citizen deliberations then serve to articulate  dissenting  views,  and  to develop  alternative  visions  (Carsten et al., 2014).

This is what the UK LLC Citizen Panel has come to be in my understanding: a dissenting constellation of power, with an alternative vision of society and a strong hope for the future.

References:

Citizen Participation Methods for Artificial Intelligence, 2024, https://openresearch.amsterdam/en/page/110361/citizen-participation-methods-for-artificial-intelligence

Garbovan L. (2025), UK LLC Citizen Panel Hybrid Workshop: The iceberg and the view under the waters…, 25 February, 2025. Available at https://ukllc.ac.uk/blog/2025/02/21/uk-llc-citizen-panel-hybrid-workshop-the-iceberg-and-the-view-under-the-waters.html

Edinburgh Futures Institute, https://efi.ed.ac.uk/.

Mann, Carsten & Voß, Jan-Peter & Amelung, Nina & Simons, Arno & Runge, Till & Grabner, Louisa. (2014). Challenging futures of citizen panels. Critical issues for robust forms of public participation. 10.13140/2.1.3502.4643.