Co-Building skills and structures

Co-building refers to the process of developing capacities and systems together, with communities, institutions, and intermediaries working as equal partners. It moves beyond top-down training and instead emphasizes shared learning, mutual support, and lasting organizational capacity. There are two key approaches often used to support co-building:

Joint Capacity-Building programs: Refers to collaborative training initiatives that involve both community members and institutional actors (e.g., municipalities, cooperatives, NGOs, energy agencies) learning side by side, rather than separately. In contrast to traditional learning which often separates "experts" from "participants", joint programs break this divide and help foster mutual understanding between citizens and institutions, define shared language around goals and methods and develop practical collaboration skills such as negotiation, facilitation, or collective governance. Examples include the COMETS and SONNET projects where local actors and institutions co-designed energy labs and workshops to explore inclusive innovation (Caramizaru & Uihlein, 2020; Foulds & Robison, 2022).

Peer-to-Peer Exchanges: Refers to providing structured opportunities for communities, energy cooperatives, and local leaders to learn from each other, through site visits, storytelling, mentorship, or shared toolkits. Peer exchanges democratize knowledge by valuing local expertise, help scale best practices across regions and build confidence among new or hesitant communities. Examples include REScoop.eu network that runs peer mentoring across Europe to help new energy communities learn from experienced ones (REScoop, 2023).