BETTER PLACES TOGETHER CONFERENCE:

Rethinking Engagement & Social Value

Thursday 12th June 2025, BOXPARK Liverpool

Overview

How can we rethink engagement and social value from tender to legacy and create Better Places Together?

Hosted at BOXPARK Liverpool, Better Places Together is a programme of collaboration and action from PLACED. Open to all, it will explore how rethinking the approach to engagement and social value can create better places for everyone.

Better Places Together focuses on the crucial ‘how’ of engaging communities and less-heard groups, reflecting ground-level experience and knowledge to rethink what constitutes best practice. The event aims to create a space for critical and open discussion, where the challenges and barriers to delivering successful engagement and social value can be discussed, and active solutions can be collectively devised.

Better Places Together is organised and delivered by PLACED with the support of their valued collaborators and industry peers.

Why attend?

Better Places Together is not a conventional conference. Instead, we will have storytellers - diverse voices that share their stories and personal experiences of the built environment, helping set the scene and frame activities.

With co-production at its heart, it is a space for active participation and discussion without hierarchies, where all voices are valued and equally heard. This inaugural PLACED conference is an invaluable opportunity to meet and engage with people from different backgrounds and share diverse experiences of the built environment in an inclusive setting.

    • Build awareness of key challenges in engagement and how these can be overcome to support your communities

    • Develop understanding of how to effectively maximise the impact of engagement/social value specialists in the work they do through the commissioning process

    • Work with underrepresented groups, design teams, engagement and social value specialists to explore how we can create better informed designs together

    • Develop an understanding of how you can improve your tenders to help you deliver maximum value and impact

    • Opportunity to discuss challenges in delivering engagement/social values, how these can be overcome and explore what constitutes ‘best practice’

    • Collaborate with underrepresented groups to understand how the built environment sector can better include them

    • Network with potential future clients and collaborators

    • Explore with commissioners how engagement is best framed in tenders

    • Advocate for the inclusion of underrepresented voices in the built environment with key stakeholders, powerholders and built environment professionals

    • Opportunity to have honest discussion, highlighting challenges facing your networks and exploring ways to overcome these

    • Build awareness of engagement and social value work and promote a more inclusive approach to the built environment

About PLACED

Established in 2011, PLACED is a social enterprise based in the North West, dedicated to public engagement and place-based education. Working at the intersection of design, planning, and community empowerment, PLACED amplifies less-heard voices and ensures that communities are actively involved in shaping the spaces around them. Through innovative engagement methods, workshops, and events, PLACED bridges the gap between communities, built environment professionals, and decision-makers, advocating for genuine collaboration and social impact.

The PLACED team are excited to host the inaugural Better Places Together conference and welcomes commissioners, design teams, built environment professionals and community advocates to engage in meaningful discussions and share insights on best practices in engagement and social value.