For whom? Reaching actors across the spectrum

A diversity of formats to reach out various target audiences

Beyond its periodic production of global/topical reports, the Panel will support the production of these diversified outputs, notably briefs and notes, data stories/interpretations, online seminars, MOOCs, podcasts, live chats, knowledge graphs. It will also encourage and support its authors to produce additional related works such as scientific publications (including special issues by journals), dissemination articles, blog posts, videos, interviews, lectures, etc.

Importantly, the Panel will not only support various hybrid formats of knowledge sharing and transfer (online lecture series, dissemination and outreach events, etc.) but also focus on the implementation stage by actors and doers (through webinars, online chats, training sessions, workshops, etc.).

In addition to producing and publicizing these outputs, the Panel may decide to commission or directly support the production of other formats such as documentaries, interviews, clips, etc. and gather them into specific and/or periodic series. These additional initiatives will be set up in coordination with professional partners.

It is fully understood that reaching out the various target audiences of the Panel (scholars, private corporations, NGOs, media, think tanks, governments, civil servants, teachers/ students, general public) will require differentiated formats (text, audio, video, maps, data) with the appropriate lengths and adequate modes of expression (scientific, expert, actionable, ludic, accessible).

A project hub to spur collaborations between actors across domains, areas, and issues

The platform will feature a database of “actors” in order to provide an indexed, intersectoral and international database of changemaking project holders, organizations, networks and communities (with links and contacts). Actors who will have registered one or more initiatives will have an entry automatically created and will be proposed to add further information on the database. Other actors will register their organizations and their area of action through a simple registration form.

Based on indications by the IPSP community and complementary research (possibly with AI assistance), organizations will be contacted and invited to join the database. For new organizations willing to be included in the database, the verification process may involve third-party validation.

The flagging process may be used to help identify the most active organizations, networks and communities, notably those that are new, smaller, less visible or more remote than other well-identified and recognized actors. Here too the database and the flagged organizations will provide a valuable material for IPSP teams as they will develop their work on priority themes.

The platform will help matchmaking organizations with similar and/or complementary agendas. Registered actors will receive notification of possible matches for collaborations/ collaborative actions with relevant organizations. They will be invited to feedback the secretariat if such collaboration becomes effective.

Funders —be they international organizations, research agencies, policymaking agencies, universities, foundations, philanthropists— will have the possibility to survey the existing (and most inspiring) social progress actors and initiatives in different domains or areas, to provide support to some of them and/or to supplement their activities by launching complementary funding calls.

Thanks to the features described above, the platform will provide a mobilization tool to facilitate the emergence of coalitions of actors. The platform will help connect actors (and empower those who may have less international visibility/recognition) into the proactive construction of agile international initiatives to address social progress at various relevant scales;

Constituting a reliable information source about social progress

With an attractive graphic design, a rich iconography and simple and intuitive navigation modalities, the platform will become the digital portal to access all IPSP activities.

From its home page, it will give access to the two “projects” and “actors” expertized databases and to all indexed resources and material posted by the IPSP secretariat and community: IPSP publications (reports, briefs, notes, knowledge graphs), IPSP databases of initiatives and actors, IPSP data stories, webinars, MOOCs, podcasts, blogs, as well as a rich array of links to relevant reports and publications from other sources and other useful material (especially free online resources). It will showcase fact-based relevant knowledge and will enhance the accessibility and visibility of these contents. It will supplement all relevant contents with carefully selected materials, references, links and contacts to raise awareness and competence about social progress initiatives.

The platform will offer a free online resource base about social progress for a larger public eager to learn more about the most inspiring initiatives and about their actors.

Specific access modes will be featured for various target audiences: scholars, civil society actors, corporations, policymakers, teachers/ students, etc. For the media, it will promote direct access to the most useful sources, publications, and experts in order to contribute to an informed debate on social progress and to strengthen journalistic knowledge and competence for strong independent coverage on social progress.

The online portal will also host an open space mechanism in which contributors and users will exchange interests and ideas. Users will be able to ask questions to the IPSP community. The Secretariat will channel these questions to the corresponding contributors and reviewers to disseminate appropriate knowledge and expertise. This consultation mechanism could be used during the preparation of IPSP reports in order to elicit comments and suggestions, as is customary in report-making processes of the IPCC.

The platform (initiatives, organizations, and resources) will be cross-linked thanks to the shared taxonomy. For example, the cross-referencing will point to the organizations that promote the featured initiatives or produced the published resources, and to organizations working in the domain. Pages of resources will link to the initiatives in the same domain. Practitioners, scholars, changemakers, and IPSP authors will use this new, comprehensive, detailed, and updated array of material in the process of writing reports and notes, enhancing international/intersectoral comparisons in research, policymaking or grassroot action.

A continuum of interactions, events, and fora

The Panel will support participatory dialogue events with relevant partners to share and debate knowledge, experience and solutions with interested actors, stakeholders and changemakers.

Most events will be hybrid to maximize attendance as well as to reduce the ecological footprint of these activities. The format of “flipped conferences” (where background material and video presentations are available and disseminated before the event) will be implemented to concentrate on the Q&A and to spur practical and concrete exchanges among participants.

IPSP events will be held on each continent to ensure that civic, social, economic, policy and scholarly communities are reached. The individuals and institutions partnering with IPSP will provide a strong basis for organizing decentralized events; IPSP authors, reviewers and contributors —through their home institutions and their professional networks or project funding— may also wish to help co-fund their actions while benefiting from the overall IPSP infrastructure.

When relevant, the Secretariat will provide support to help organize such events, notably by reaching out to possible speakers from the IPSP community (Honorary Committee, Advisory Board, Contributors’ Network, etc.). Following decisions by the Coordination Council, the Panel may provide limited funding for dissemination and participatory dialogue events of particular interest.

The Panel intends to organize from October 2024 onwards an annual World Social Progress Forum. To be held every year on a different continent, keynotes, workshops, presentations, poster sessions will stimulate the exchange of ideas and of experiences among participants. Social Progress Awards will be attributed to distinguish outstanding and inspirational achievements.

The Social Progress Forum will be organized in association with the World Social Progress Day that could be launched in October 2024 or, if we want to allow more time for preparation, in October 2025. The World Social Progress Day would provide the opportunity to release an annual Declaration calling for a set of concrete changes that would be specified every year. The Declaration would be undersigned massively not only by the large IPSP community but by millions of citizens thanks to the use of decentralized and connected online petitioning. Supported by a worldwide press conference, the Declaration will be addressed to international organizations, national governments, and business leaders.

A strong communication strategy

There is strong consensus that an ambitious and well-designed communication strategy needs to be planned at the onset of the new Panel and be embedded at all levels of the future activities. Given the diversity and technicality of the various components of such a strategy, recruitments of highly-skilled staff as well regular collaborations with specialized professionals will be key to the success of its implementation.

Two key basic rules will govern the entire communication strategy:

The Panel should communicate on its ability to reduce the complexity of the transformation of societies with clear messages on the direction of social progress, the articulation of its components and the coordination of its implementation.
The Panel will need to build trust, prominence, and significance through the high quality of its contents, its periodic regularity (that can be differentiated according to the various demands, for example of social media communication or syndicated press collaboration), the identification of recognized voices in the IPSP community on specific issues, its ability to encapsulate the complex reality of social progress in an accessible and consistent rhetorical messaging and call for action.

The communication strategy will rely on a diversity of channels and tools, with a strong digital presence that will be ensured by a continuous stream of information, feedback, reporting on social innovations, experiments and initiatives. In the first phase, the digital dissemination will benefit from the reach of the network of networks, associations and organizations that the Panel is currently constituting. The multiplier effect of the cohorts of followers of IPSP members and partners will help engage with a large and diversified audience.

The Panel will investigate the following actions in the coming months: