Co-creation and decision-making processes with migrants: some evidence from the MICADO co-creation experience in Bologna

In the last few years we witnessed an increased use of co-creation processes in the design of services and design of public policies. Traditionally used in marketing and communication area, this approach has gained legitimacy and diffusion among areas of research and projects that address societal issues, such as migrant- related challenges. Co-creative methods advocate to involve a wide variety of stakeholders throughout the entire co-creative process. The active inclusion of this wide spectrum of stakeholders is based on the idea that 'everyone is an expert on one issue or another, first and foremost on their own life' (van Westen and van Dijk 2015, p.15). The aim of bringing different people (stakeholders) together to develop an idea is multifold: the involvement of the target group throughout the co-creative process is expected to increase transparency, support and contribute to build a cultural acceptance of the shared approach and increase the level of responsibility connected with the final outcome of the co-design process. In this scenario the co-creation process should be fully integrated into a wider participatory decision-making process where actors have the capacity to steer and build the outcome and monitor its effect, especially if in the presence of a discrepancy of power, knowledge and access to information, as often occur in migration research and policy making. Through a critical observation of preliminary results of 7 co-design process held in Bologna in 2019 with migrants, local authories and stakeholders involved in the integration policies, as part of the H2020 project MICADO, the paper tries to analyze the main characteristics of an effective co-creation methodology. Even if this methodology could actually represent an empowering space and tool for migrants and other actors involved in finding innovative strategies to address migrant-related challenges, everything depend given all the specific circumstances of the European Countries partner of the project.