A new report from the Joint Research Centre explores the challenges and lessons learnt from the online citizen engagement process of the Conference on the Future of Europe. The report looks at the potential of digital technologies in increasing the opportunities for citizens to participate in policymaking, highlighting several of the challenges faced during the implementation of the Conference’s digital platform.

The Competence Centre has recently published practical Guidelines to evaluating processes of citizen engagement in policymaking. At the moment, it is aimed at Commission policy officers, while work at the Competence Centre continues towards expanding its usability also for other kindred institutions, as well as to the wider Community of Practice of participation and evaluation experts.

The Competence Centre will be releasing a new report on public spaces and citizen engagement before summer. Stay tuned for more information about the launch....

The CC-DEMOS is upstarting a new Community of Practice to help bring local, traditional and indigenous knowledges into science and policymaking processes.

As part of the European Commission project, the Competence Centre is planning citizen participation and foresight exercises in 10 Member States to better understand Participatory foresight: Future of democracy study. This includes development of an agenda of indicators, including impacts and evaluation of democratic innovations.

The Toolkit is a resource for organizations, communities, and participants involved in climate citizens’ assemblies. By integrating citizen science into climate assemblies, participants can gain expertise and contribute to breaking top-down structures, fostering a more democratic and inclusive deliberative process.

The objective of the European Commission's Guidebook is to establish a reference toolbox that summarises different formats and objectives of citizen engagement, and provide guidance on how to choose and implement citizen engagement in policy files.

The European Group on Ethics analyses how a recent wave of far-right populism puts democracy at risk. It formulates a substantive understanding of democracy that does not limit it to elections, but makes real the values and rights it is based upon.

This JRC provides evidence-based insights and recommendations on how public communicators can strengthen the future of democracies by navigating (new) information ecosystems in ways that earn the trust and confidence of citizens.

This report by the JRC provides evidence-based insights and recommendations on how public communicators can strengthen the future of democracies by navigating (new) information ecosystems in ways that earn the trust and confidence of citizens.

This Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe report finds that participatory and deliberative democracy processes can contribute to rekindling citizens’ trust in public authorities and strengthen their political engagement, including their participation in decision-making processes, in complementarity with representative institutions.

The report presents European Research Council-funded projects working on challenges confronting democratic systems as well as the resilience of democratic principles and civic engagement.

CC-DEMOS has recently initiated an in-depth and interdisciplinary study on the impacts of citizen engagement in policymaking. The study consists of various research and collaborative activities, and will be followed by a comprehensive report crafted to support practitioners, academics and policymakers in their efforts to create policy impact by using participatory methods. As a launching event, a first collaborative workshop on citizen engagement impacts has taken place on 21st June 2023. The event has welcomed a variety of participants interested in contributing the discussion on the multiplicity of impacts that citizen engagement has across Europe and beyond. The participants, who represented both academia and the European Commission, were ask to share their stories on impacts and reflect on such questions as how to frame, define and identify the most important areas in which the impact has been taking place. This mapping exercise on the impacts of citizen engagement has led to some initial conclusions that citizen engagement is an effective tool for shaping policy process in case of particularly complex policy issues that require innovatory approach, contextual knowledge and are multi stakeholder orientated. Also, citizen engagement is deemed as a general tool for improving the quality of democracy.

Find out what the cohort is working on and aiming to achieve as part of U.S. President Biden's 2023 Summit for Democracy (Cohort launch 17th January - Register now).

This open access publication covers 31 research methods written by scholars in the field

Is deliberation universal? Should it be? Is our way of conceptualizing and organizing it in Europe (too) “Western-centric”? Two researchers and experts in “democratic innovations”, Nicole Curato and Melisa Ross, speak to Missions Publiques to bring some perspective to our practices.

This World Bank report explores the issue of inequality when it comes to civic technologies

Ângela Guimarães Pereira, head of the Competence Centre on Participatory and Deliberative Democracy, explains why June 17th, 2022 was a significant day for citizen engagement in EU policymaking

Go on a journey with MosaicLab directors Kimbra White, Nicole Hunter and Keith Greaves as they take you behind the scenes of a public deliberation in this comprehensive, practical guide.

This paper presents a participant-observation account of John Boswell's experience as a randomly selected participant at a Citizens’ Assembly. He reflects on what the unique experience of ‘seeing like a citizen’ can add to accepted understandings and practices of mini-public deliberation.