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Article History

Received: 19 March 2025

Accepted: 4 March 2026

First Online: 19 March 2026

Competing interests

: The authors declare no competing interests.

: This study was approved by the SPS Research Ethics Committee at the University of Edinburgh (Approval No. Ethical approval reference ID: 282253, approved July 2021. All research procedures involving human participants were conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The scope of the approval covered all stages of the research, including recruitment, interviews, surveys, ethnographic observation, and focus groups. Given the small sample size and the public visibility of the citizens’ assembly examined in this study, the approved protocol included safeguards to minimise risks of indirect identification. All data were handled confidentially, stored securely, and accessible only to the research team, in line with the approved ethical protocol and relevant institutional guidelines.

: The authors obtained written informed consent from all participants prior to their involvement in the study. Consent was collected by one of the paper authors between October 2022 and May 2023. Consent was obtained using a standardised written information sheet and consent form approved by the above-mentioned ethics committee. The researchers informed participants about the purpose of the research, that participation was entirely voluntary, their rights to withdraw, and the ways in which their data would be used, stored, and protected, including access rights. The scope of consent covered participation in interviews, surveys, ethnographic observation, and focus groups; the use of anonymised quotations in publications; and consent to publish anonymised data extracts. No images, audio, or video recordings that could identify participants are included in this manuscript. All identifying details were removed or altered in ways that do not distort meaning. The study did not involve minors, vulnerable individuals, or biological materials.