Territories in Residence

Local experience in new ways to take public action

Commenced in 2009, “Territoires en Résidence” is the first program developed by La 27e Région. The modus operandi is simple: a multidisciplinary team resides in total immersion with a public facility or service – a neighborhood organization, school, community center – for three separate one-week periods to question operation of the entity from the standpoint of its beneficiaries in order to propose concrete improvements.


An alternative to conventional engineering

Customarily, public players turn to researchers, consultants and evaluators to help design public policy, which is often not only an expensive approach, but one that proves to be inadequate in meeting the challenges of public facilities and services and the needs of their users. How can the implementation of public policies be re-investigated, improved and redirected based on current practices and the experience of users? Inspired by artists-in-residence programs, Territoires en résidence has been deployed throughout the country as an alternative to conventional modes of public action.


Map of residencies (FR)

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User’s manual for residencies (FR)

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Analysis of residency results (FR)

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Proving the validity of the concept

This ground level, residency approach, which tackles the very core of public policy, has been deployed to-date in 16 different public facilities/services on as many topics, including the need to reconstruct existing public mechanisms, create new departments and investigate public management issues. Through experimentation, the goal of Territoires en résidence is to demonstrate the value of an approach based on observing current uses, on the expertise of citizens and professionals in the field, and on prototyping and rapidly testing new public policies.