The first kickoff event of the CO-SUSTAIN project study took place last week in Kalajärvi, Espoo. The project’s Finnish team, LUT, organized this event to introduce the participants of the upcoming deliberation panels to the case study context and the CO-SUSTAIN project.

LUT’s case study focuses on citizen participation and aims to illustrate this citizen democracy process through an example of deliberation panels on small modular reactors (SMRs). Currently the city of Espoo doesn’t have plans to locate an SMR to the city, and the case study does not impose the implementation of an SMR as a prerequisite for the deliberation process.

The event started with a presentation of the project, Q&A, and research exercises. The latter part of the event included group discussions. Although the number of participants was lower than hoped, there was some fruitful discussion on meaningful participation and how to reach vulnerable groups. The main takeaway from the event was the valuable feedback from the participants, which will be crucial when planning the deliberation panels which will take place in Espoo from February 2026 onwards.

Many thanks to all the participants!