Polish citizens power Just Transformation of Europe’s biggest coal region

180 in-depth interviews held, 2800 arguments mapped, and 93 innovation ideas developed together with citizens. These figures alone show how dynamic the past year has been for the Rybnik360 project, the Polish light at the end of the tunnel on Europe’s path of phasing out of coal.

The Rybnik360 project is part of the Just Transformation Deep Demonstration programme, in which EIT Climate-KIC, together with partners from many European countries, is initiating a systems innovation approach aimed at tackling Europe’s biggest climate challenges.

The heart of the coal region

Triggering social, economic and energy-supply change means paying close attention to citizens. That is why researchers have even gone underground to hear and understand the perspectives of people from different backgrounds.

Rybnik is located in the heart of the European Union’s largest coal region, which today faces the challenge of the energy transition and struggles with enormous air pollution.

In the difficult process of shifting away from economic, energy and social coal dependency, where different stakeholder groups have different and often conflicting interests and expectations, it is crucial to find ways to become one of the successful transition cities. It is also crucial to avoid the dangers of shrinkage and economic collapse of the city, and its neighbourhoods. Therefore, Rybnik authorities, together with many stakeholders and EIT Climate-KIC, have decided to take up this challenge and design a prosperous city that is resilient to climate change, free from smog and has a plan for the post-carbon era, as well as ways to achieve this vision as part of the Deep Demonstrations programme.

On the path to transformation

Rybnik360 is more than just a project. It is a long-term process working towards a just transformation of this Silesian city. The vehicle is a new development strategy for Rybnik based on systemic innovation. This strategy is then implemented together with the city’s stakeholders. The process in Rybnik started in the last months of 2019 and has not lost momentum despite the restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the course of the past challenging year, the city has consistently inched closer to a more sustainable and prosperous future.

“We have identified four thematic areas as our main challenges within the project. These are air quality, quality of life, the future of work and the future of mining,” says Wojciech Kiljańczyk, Chairman of the Rybnik City Council.

“Collaboration with EIT Climate-KIC is very important for Rybnik because we can learn from other cities and regions in Europe and in the world, while focusing on developing tailor-made solutions for our city. The innovation here is that we reverse the roles. The city government is focused on listening to the citizens. In other words, it is not about imposing a particular perspective, but listening to the citizens and other stakeholders in the city to identify the pathways of this transformation,” says Kiljańczyk, who is also the leader of the Rybnik360 project with EIT Climate-KIC’s partner SPIN-US, the main initiator of the collaboration between the city and EIT Climate-KIC.

Residents are the ‘beating heart’

This is a unique initiative at the national level, as citizens and other city stakeholders are involved in planning the city’s development strategy and then implementing it together.

As residents are the beating heart of this transformation, the Deep Listening method, originating from the Mondragon Valley in the Basque Country, was used to co-create with them a long-term vision for the future of Rybnik. This method involved a series of in-depth interviews with residents and a complex analysis process. Deep Listening is a key methodology to foster more effective collective action for social change.

“This is a unique opportunity to look at these processes, explore them and to take decisions based on data and not on what we imagine,” says Piotr Masłowski, vice-president of Rybnik.

“This project is about the transformation of mining and energy. We are focused on putting the city on a new path to the future. This project is a great opportunity to develop a new vision for Rybnik, what it will look like in the coming years,” he says.  

The researchers spoke with residents, entrepreneurs, the non-governmental sector and community activists, as well as the local government and many other institutions about Rybnik’s past, present and future to gain the insights needed to plan further development of the city.

In order to gain trust and understand different perspectives, the researchers sometimes had to work under difficult conditions, for example when they were underground and talked to miners in their daily working environment.

Rybnik360: The power of a portfolio

The EIT Climate-KIC team has developed a tailored approach for Rybnik that addresses local specificity while laying the foundation for systemic innovation according to the Deep Demonstrations methodology. The three main pillars identified as key drivers are Future Literacy, Futures of Work, and Policy Innovation. However, there are many more leverage points.

“Identifying and understanding all the blockages, gaps, as well as assets and opportunities, together with potential synergies and feedback loops is essential,” says Aneta Skubida, the main orchestrator of the project on the EIT Climate-KIC side.

This approach is deliberately designed to be much more effective than old-fashioned, single-point, disconnected solutions that don’t always meet real, systemic needs. According to Skubida, it’s based on constant learning and refining, and the courage to do things differently. “Rybnik is currently one of the most ambitious cities in Europe to take up the challenge of just transformation through a systemic innovations approach and broad collaboration with the city’s residents and stakeholders,” she says.

A key element in the city’s transformation is the creation of a portfolio of strategic solutions that are interconnected to amplify the impact on Rybnik’s entire urban ecosystem.

Based on the knowledge of all stakeholders, a map of the city’s current system was co-created, systems of interconnected resources and challenges were identified, and points in this system were selected where interventions should be implemented to achieve the desired impact. For example, how to support entrepreneurs and encourage future entrepreneurs, or how to catalyse the replacement of coal heating in residents’ homes.

This map forms targeted and deliberate city acupuncture to heal the systems and ensure the vitality of the city. This method also means that after the initial implementations, there is constant learning evolution of the portfolio.

To encourage positive feedback, the partners involved in the Rybnik360 process created this portfolio of innovations that addresses the most important needs of residents and Rybnik’s path to a greener Europe.

“Positive Momentum”

The future of Rybnik depends largely on the decisions of the authorities regarding the so-called hard factors of development, one of the most important being the pace of withdrawal from mining, which depends on the national government.

Nevertheless, the Rybnik city administration proves how much can be done without waiting for the big decisions: Finding ways for “positive momentum” in the city, empowering local entrepreneurs, attracting new types of investors (other industries, renewable energy sources, business process outsourcing, medical or IT sectors), finding new strategies to fight smog.

It is also determined by soft factors, where vision, courage, imagination and hope, as well as finding new ways to collaborate with the whole community to create a better future together, are no less important.

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