The methodology of New Dutch Connections (NDC) provides a valuable framework for planning, implementing, ensuring, sustaining, and evaluating Future Citizens, resulting in more effective and sustainable outcomes.

The phases—co-creation, attribution, celebration, contribution, and consolidation—are associated with research into a better understanding of the value of participation and impact in arts and cultural interventions, aimed at fostering a more inclusive, resilient, and prosperous society.

NDC has partially adopted and adapted this phased approach as a method for all Future Citizens productions, due to the intended long-term and broad impact that Future Citizens aims to achieve. Future Citizens provides a structured framework for the development and execution of relevant activities, helping to focus and prioritize each specific phase, with the newcomer and local context at the center. This information is compiled into a handbook, allowing local initiative groups and partners to organize Future Citizens, which enhances implementation capacity, promotes sustainability, and increases impact on the cultural, social, and economic participation and inclusion of refugees.

Through this approach, Future Citizens is adaptable to local conditions and provides natural points for monitoring, evaluation, and adjustment, thereby improving effectiveness. This methodology encourages collaborative engagement among various stakeholders, with all parties actively contributing to the process, feeling involved in decision-making, and taking responsibility for outcomes.

This leads to sustainable results and a sense of ownership among all participants. Partners contribute in various ways to the success of Future Citizens and its desired outcomes.

These four phases form a cyclical process that is continuously repeated, refined, and adjusted to the specific needs of all involved, partners, and the local community. Each Future Citizens production thus works on building a strategic framework for the process, creating sustainable partnerships, and promoting the sustainability of collaborations.