For the second time, the European Commission's Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy is seeking proposals by public authorities and civil society organizations, interested in implementing innovative citizen participation practices in cohesion policy.
- 16 February 2023
DG REGIO is offering for the second time technical support by experts from the OECD to managing authorities, intermediate bodies or beneficiaries to work in cooperation with civil society organisations to implement in an innovative way the partnership principle.
Are you from a public authority and would you like to step-up citizen participation beyond information and consultation? Are you a civil society organisation active in your territory and would you like to improve collaboration with public authorities?
Then, we invite you to create a joint team, to identify an investment area from the 2021-2027 programmes, and to select an innovative participatory process that you would be interested in applying in your specific context. This could include for example, deliberative processes, open innovation, participatory budgeting, civic monitoring, use of emerging technologies for participation, etc.
Up to ten proposals, out of which at least one aiming at applying a participatory process at regional level and at least one in the context of a Territorial Just Transition Plan, will receive assistance by the Open Government unit of the OECD.
The selected pilots will complement the pilots of phase 1, by widening the participatory methodologies applied, and by broadening the typology of actors to also cover actors at regional level.
For further details, see the call for expression of interests.
The application should be sent to REGIO-E1-ADMINISTRATIVE-CAPACITY@ec.europa.eu .
The deadline for applications is 30.04.2023.
A webinar to present the call in detail and to reply to your questions is organised by DG REGIO and the OECD on Tuesday 7 March 11AM – 12PM CET. If you are interested in participating, please register here.
Background
This is phase 2 of a joint initiative by DG REGIO and the OECD. In 2022 six public authorities and their corresponding partners from the civil society started setting-up innovative participatory processes in order to involve citizens in decisions on EU investments in relation to territorial and urban strategies funded by programmes 2021-2027. Further information about these 6 pilots projects will be provided at a webinar on 28 March [registration will open soon].
Helping everyday public administrations to improve their skills: Managing EU funds for cohesion policy can be challenging, and there are often needs for training and tools to make them work better and faster. The competence centre for “administrative capacity building” at DG REGIO offers tools, training, support and knowledge to help civil servants increase their skills in topics such as state aid, public procurement and road maps for administrative capacity building - and as wide as anti-corruption, anti-fraud and citizens’ participation. Visit the following page to know more about our offer: Improving how funds are invested and managed