Projects

​​Our policy-focused projects empower partners to be more influential in advocating for their evidence/analysis and thereby, expand access to an often elite world of policy-making and enrich the democratic process. We also work in the area of narrative change & strategic communications to empower advocates, campaigners and supporters to put in place the infrastructure and communications to maintain public support for democracy, diversity and social cohesion agendas. 

 

Selected projects

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    Networking activity in policy advocacy workshop for European researchers & activists of the At Home in Europe (OSF) network in 2012.

 

Our aim in the Reframe the Debate! project was to empower progressive campaigners to more effectively engage and rebalance the public debate around migration in Germany, putting diversity and inclusion more firmly back on the agenda. The project trained 221 campaigners from 28 German organisations, developed the 'Go-To' toolkit to support progressive activists and proved that narrative change campaign approaches work in the German context. See the project website.

This is an example of a common type of project for ICPA: a Narrative Development Lab. In Labs, we support groups of campaigners to build capacity to develop, test and roll out narrative change campaigns & strategic communications projects. We have supported 5 Labs in Germany, Kazakhstan and at the European level, focused on shifting middle attitudes on migration, Muslims and Civic Space. 

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This initiative grew out of the desire of the Gulbenkian Sustainability Program to support better public policies related to Sustainable Production and Consumption, by developing a new cadre of young to mid-career professionals with the skills and insight to effectively engage and advocate at the policy level. LEAP succeeded in advancing the policy skills of the cohort and added a significant amount of new policy proposals, at least one of which was quickly adopted by a number of municipalities in Portugal. See the project website.

This is an example of a common type of project for ICPA: the policy fellowship. In this approach, we support groups of researchers to develop policy-advice based on primary research and an advocacy approach targeting influence. We have supported 19 different policy fellowship projects, some lasting between 5 to 10 years and being a catalyst in the foundation of vibrant policy institutions.

leap group

The programme was designed to support the implementation of NAI’s strategic communications strategy in Italy & build an ICPA-certified Italian-speaking training team that will build the capacity of a wide range of Italian migration stakeholders in strategic communications. The ToT built the capacity of 5 trainers to effectively deliver an ICPA Strategic Communications workshop in Italian, trained 54 Italian NGO & foundation actors and the training team secured funding to support more Italian campaigners in 2023 & 2024.

This is an example of common type of project for ICPA: a Training of Trainers project. Aiming to support sustainable communities of practice in key skill areas, we have often done ToTs when our resources have been translated into new languages.

 

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        ToT team meeting, Turin 2021

The Lab aimed to build the capacity of NGO actors in Kazakhstan to rebuild support for NGOs among the moveable middle in Kazakhstan and thereby, contribute to slowing down the tabling and implementation of legal measures which seek to shrink civic space. The Lab proved that messaging on the work of NGOs around unifying value appeals does positively shift attitudes of movable middle audiences and build significant capacity of key civil society partners to defend civic rights through narrative change.

This is another example of common type of project for ICPA: a Narrative Development Lab.

 

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            "Many hands reach heaven" - Campaign materials

The aim of the Proactive Protection project is to support NGOs in the diversity sector to respond more effectively to attacks resulting from conspiracy thinking & narratives that limit their ability to fulfil their democracy promotion role and undermine trust in the sector and in democracy. Through a narrative development and testing process, a narrative strategy that has helps to immunisation segments at risk of taking on such thinking will be developed and shared among NGOs and their supporters to inform their responses and communication/campaigning efforts. See the project website.

This is an example of a common type of project for ICPA: a Narrative Strategy Development project. We work to map out the narrative challenge and develop a tested narrative strategy that can then be used by a network or organisation to inform comms, campaigning and project work with sceptical public audiences.

See more about the training workshops (policy & narrative change) & resources that are key foundations of these projects.