The imprint
Who are we?
Deliberation Gateway began as a thematic network of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce — the RSA. Our purpose within the larger organisation was to draw RSA Fellows together to explore the role of deliberation in society.
How it came about
The network began in 2018 inside the RSA-US and spent its first few years learning about deliberation. Asking fellows what deliberation was, when deliberation is useful, what unmet need it meets, and — in 2019, before there was anything to defend — when it is a bad idea.
Then the format found itself. Rather than discussing deliberation in general, each session took one sector and held a real conversation with the people already inside it. An opening session in March 2023, technology that October, non-violence in early 2024, faith that November, finance in 2025, industry and academia in 2026. Those six are published here as they were recorded.
More recently the work has become more concrete: citizens’ assemblies on industrial strategy and on responsible investment — the move from is this a good idea to here is the process and here is what it produced. The imprint is the latest step, and the reason is unglamorous. A network running this long accumulates arguments, recordings and half-finished papers, and they need somewhere permanent: numbered, dated, citable, and hard to quietly revise.
Founder
Dr Chris Forman, PhD, FRSA is a research scientist with thirty years' experience spanning eight fields of study at five universities and two major corporations. He founded Deliberation Gateway out of frustration with the way that scientific knowledge was used in decision making. Learn more about our founder here.
Contributors
The people below have contributed to works in the register — as participants in the recorded conversations, or to the papers and proceedings that came out of them, or in the background helping to organize and shape events.
RSA Fellows and Staff
- Obhi Chatterjee The Waterfall podcast Financial Deliberative Accountability
- Roger Casale New Europeans Modern Industrial Strategy
- Darrell Bouldin RSA Deliberation Gateway Network Lead
- Eva Pascoe RSA Board of Trustees Deliberation, Industry and Academia
- Claire Byrne RSA RSA US Senior Community Manager
- Toni Shoola RSA Senior Connection Culture and Operations Lead, RSA-US
- Stephen Oram Author Citizens' Industrial Strategy (chair, workshop one)
RSA friends
- Irenie Ekkeshis New Citizen Project Deliberation, Industry and Academia
- Matt Orsagh Arketa Institute for Post-Growth Finance Financial Deliberative Accountability
- Anastasia Linn Arketa Institute for Post-Growth Finance Financial Deliberative Accountability
- Tim MacDonald Capacity Finance Deliberation & Finance, Financial Deliberative Accountability
- Fraser Murison-Smith Capacity Finance Financial Deliberative Accountability
Conversation panellists
- Linn Davis Healthy Democracy Introduction to Deliberation
- Phil Lindsay Hannah Arendt Center Introduction to Deliberation
- Rahmin Sarabi DemocracyNext Introduction to Deliberation
- Alice Siu Stanford Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law Deliberation & Technology
- John Gastil Pennsylvania State University Deliberation & Technology
- Andrew Stillman Braver Angels Deliberation & Technology
- Liz Barry Computational Democracy Deliberation & Technology
- April Chatham-Carpenter University of Arkansas at Little Rock Deliberation & Non-Violence
- Roger Berkowitz Hannah Arendt Center Deliberation & Non-Violence
- Lester Kurtz George Mason University Deliberation & Non-Violence
- Mandar Apte Cities4Peace Deliberation & Faith
- Layne Hartsell Chulalongkorn University Deliberation & Faith
- Ian Troesoyer Democracy Without Elections Deliberation & Faith (co-host)
- Emmeline Cooper Cranfield University Deliberation & Finance
- Forrest Sparks The Assembly Project, CUNY Deliberation & Finance
- Tim Minshall Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge Deliberation, Industry and Academia
- Jo Lucas CoCrea8 Deliberation, Industry and Academia
The organisations we work with are on the partners page, and the work itself is the register.