Title: The challenge of the e-Agora metrics: the social construction of meaningful measurements

Authors: Patrizia Lombardi, Ian Cooper

Addresses: Politecnico di Torino, Viale Mattioli 39, 10125 Turin, Italy. ' Eclipse Research Consultants, 121 Arbury Road, Cambridge, CB4 2JD, UK

Abstract: |How are we progressing towards achieving sustainable development in the EU|s desired knowledge society?| Current lists of indicators, indices and assessment tools, which have been developed for measuring and displaying performance at different spatial levels, show that progress has been made. However, there are still a very large number of indicators, perhaps the majority, most specifically those which relate to social and political issues, that are difficult to capture. Issues such as intergenerational equity, aesthetics and governance come into this category. |How is it possible to measure these and capture their full meaning and represent this back meaningfully to disparate groups of stakeholders in a society?| This paper will discuss these issues, highlighting the need for new methods and an alternative view of how to go about the capture and representation of the types of data with which we need to work.

Keywords: assessment methods; civil society organisations; CSO; knowledge society; sustainable development indicators; social construction; sustainability; performance measurement; intergenerational equity; aesthetics; governance; sustainable urban development; e-Agora.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSD.2009.032778

International Journal of Sustainable Development, 2009 Vol.12 No.2/3/4, pp.210 - 222

Published online: 21 Apr 2010 *

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