POWER is a project funded by the European Commission’s HORIZON 2020 programme. The principal aims of POWER are the development of more effective local policies and climate change governance, the improved involvement of citizens in self-regulation enabling them to take informed decisions as consumers, to enable local communities of citizens to learn new practices, create new capacities and develop local strategies in response to climate mitigation and adaptation and to ensure social innovation by the ‘network effect’ that the POWER model will generate.

One of the principal features of POWER is the establishment of a Digital Social Platform (DSP). A DSP is a form of electronic communication through which people create online communities to share information and ideas. A DSP is a necessary element in order to guarantee a top-bottom and bottom-up dialogue on many political, social and environmental issues. In order to be able to fully analyse the environmental, political and social impact of the POWER DSP, the project consortium seeks to study the performance of DSP applications at a number of levels. In order to better understand the relationship between organisations such as yours and the use of DSPs we would be extremely grateful if you were to answer the following questions concerning the past and present use of DSPs by your organisation.

What does it involve?
We would like you to complete this online questionnaire. Completing this survey should take between 5 and 10 minutes of your time. Your name and personal details will not appear on any material arising from this research.

You may decide to drop out from this study at any time. To do so, simply stop answering the questions and close your Internet browser. If you would like that your answers are removed from this study after you have completed the questionnaire, please contact the Centre Tecnològic de Manresa (CTM) using the details below.

If you have any questions about this study, please feel free to discuss them with Richard Eleman (richard.elelman@ctm.com.es) or José Jorge Espí (jose.espi[ctm.com.es) at Centre Tecnològic de Manresa. For questions about the project, please contact the project coordinator Paul Fleming (pfleming@dmu.ac.uk) at De Montfort University.

How will the results be used?
The data from this study will be analysed and used for project reports and presentations and in academic publications. Neither your name nor any other personal identifying information will appear in any reports, papers or presentations resulting from this study.

All data collected and processed in this study will be handled in compliance with the UK and EU Data Protection legislation which require that all data will be kept confidential, anonymsed and stored in a secure location. We can assure you that the methodology for the data collection has been reviewed and approved by the De Montfort University Human Research Ethics committee. Only the researchers at the Centre Tecnològic de Manresa and De Montfort University will have access to the collected data.

If you are interested to find more information about the POWER project, please follow the web link provided at the end of the survey.

Thank you for taking the time to participate in this study. Your feedback is important.

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