Links

MOMENTUM Portal of eParticipation projects

The main objective of MOMENTUM Project is to strengthen political, social, scientific, and technological excellence in eParticipation by integrating results and practices of relevant initiatives building upon the ICT research capacities of individuals and organisations spread across Europe. MOMENTUM is a Specific Support Action project funded under the European Commission’s eParticipation programme (eParticipation 2007/1).

eParticipation preparatory action

The objectives of the eParticipation Preparatory Action are to demonstrate how using modern ICT tools and applications can make it easier for people to participate in decision-making and can contribute to better legislation. The action was initiated by the European Parliament and launched in 2006. It supports pilot projects in real-life environments that demonstrate the use of Information and Communication Technologies to bolster citizens’ participation in democratic decision-making.

eParticipation

eGovernment for the people - Good practice in eParticipation with links to the eParticipation leaflet, eParticipation preparatory action, FP5 and FP6 research projects on eParticipation & the Report on national eParticipation initiatives.

Community Portal of eParticipation Projects

Initiative to increase citizens participation in EU legislative process

LEGESE - Easing Participation in Legislative Processes

LEGESE is an eParticipation Action project that is pilot trialing a new service to encourage easy communication and information exchange for effective public participation in the legislation implementation phase of European initiated legislation at the local and regional levels that are most directly relevant to most citizens’ lives.

eParticipate - European eService for Democratic Renewal & Citizen Engagement.

eParticipate provides an open integrated standard web-based network & gateway of existing “best of breed” applications (called Public-i) to enable public bodies to implement and benefit from a range of eParticipation tools to broaden the participation of citizens in the democratic process

FEED 'Federated eParticipation Systems for Cross-Societal Deliberation on Environmental and Energy Issues'

provides users with seamless access to existing federated content that matches their information search requirements, with a focus on Environmental and Energy issues. Read more.

DEMO-net: The eParticipation Network

DEMO-net is a Network of Excellence project funded under the European Commission's sixth framework programme: Information Society Technologies IST (FP6-2004-27219). The project started 1 January 2006, will be funded for 4 years.

Demos@Work 'European-wide discussion between elected representatives and civil society':

facilitating European-wide discussions between elected representatives and civil society on emerging policy issues in the field of public health, particularly the harmful effects of smoking.

Ideal-EU 'Integrating the Drivers of e-Participation at Regional Level in Europe':

raising awareness on the latest evidence on climate change, and appropriate policy responses, together with assessments of the financial impact and costs of inaction.

VEP 'The Virtual European Parliament'

creates a virtual European Parliament in which young citizens can participate via mobiles and web2.0 technologies and tools.

VOICE 'Giving European People a voice in EU-legislation'

enhancing the participation of citizens from regions in Germany and Spain in EU decision-making in the area of consumer protection.

eCommittee

provides citizens with the opportunity to follow issues in the European Parliament's Environment Committee and to interact with MEPs. The focus is on climate change.

DALOS 'Drafting legislation with ontology-base support'

project aims to provide law-makers and European citizens with linguistic and knowledge management tools to assist in accessing and retrieving as well as drafting legal texts.

SEAL 'Smart Environment for Assisting the drafting and debating of Legislation'

developing an integrated working environment to help those involved in drafting legal texts. The project provides the tools to make it easier to create legal drafts and connections from and to existing legal sources.

LEX-IS (Enabling Participation of the Youth in the Public Debate of Legislation among Parliaments, Citizens and Businesses in the European Union)

Aims to improve the legislative process in National Parliaments through enhancing public participation in the preparatory stages (legislative drafting and public debate of draft law) with the use of state-of-the-art ICT-tools and methodologies.

LEXIPATION 'An advanced ICT tool for enhancing Citizen's participation in the legislative process'

provides tools to aid interaction between members of parliaments and citizens or groups of citizens at the regional level in four member states (Germany, Greece, Italy, and UK)

TID+ 'Enabling citizens' initiative to eParticipation'

based on an Estonian experience (Today I Decide) which enables citizens to propose, discuss and express views on new legislation initiatives, while allowing decision-makers to deliver a response to them, this project will adapt and make available this service in a cross-border environment.

Wikipedia eParticipation Page

Defines eParticipation and provides some useful links, but needs to be edited and completed.

Planned EU 'political MySpace'

Planned social networking site for MEPs and MPs to boost contacts between politicians across Europe and promote a trans-European democracy. Officially to be launched in October - is a website currently under construction that aims to work along the same lines as the popular MySpace or Facebook social networking services, but in addition to linking social contacts aims to foster debate about legislative proposals coming both out of Brussels and from national parliaments.

Citizenscape Western Australia - CommunityBuilder

Citizenscape Australia - Resources and Guides for active citizenship from Western Australia Provides a wealth of practical information on citizenship-related organizations, activities, resources and projects. This Western Australian government site is particularly useful for those who want to take an active role in shaping the future of their community through government related decision-making. This site has been designed for citizens; decision-makers and those interested in engaging citizens in civic debate. Information on Citizenscape outlines how you can get involved in government decision making. It will be particularly useful to individuals and civic advocates who wish to learn more about how to influence decision-makers.

ARIADNE Newsletters on eParticipation

Quarterly Newsletters for advancing technologies, ideas and provocative exchange of views and opinions in the areas of e-government, e-participation and governance, prepared as part of the dissemination and public awareness activities of the ALTEC Research Programmes Division http://research.altec.gr

DoWire Groups - Online Communities of Practice &E-mail Updates

DoWire Groups promotes international online information and knowledge exchange on e-democracy, e-government, and democracy practices. It is the online place for those building information-age democracy, governance, and active citizenship in the 21st Century. Each online group is an integrated e-mail list and web forum with file sharing and more. You may choose e-mail (default setting), web, or both for discussions. E-mail updates from our Democracies Online Newswire (blog version) and our low volume DoWire site Announcements are also available. Launched as DO-WIRE in 1998, the Newswire reaches over 2750 members across 100 countries.

eParticipation & eDemocracy Network on ePractice.eu

The eParticipation and eDemocracy Network is open to all interested in these issues, whether at sub-national, national, European or trans-national levels. The issues covered are potentially broad, such as eEngagement, eDeliberation, eInvolvement, eLegislation and eVoting, as well as eDecision, eRule and ePolicy-making.

PEP-NET Pan European eParticipation Network

PEP-NET will be a European network of all stakeholders active in the field of eParticipation. PEP-NET therefore already includes public bodies, solution providers and citizen organizations as well as researchers and scientists. The network is open to all organizations willing and actively trying to advance the idea and use of eParticipation in Europe.

Internet based participation & ePetitions projects in the UK & Germany

We present a variety of internet based participation and ePetitions projects in the United Kingdom and in Germany. Our aim is to show diverse developments and highlight examples of good practice. Furthermore, we would like to encourage people to join one of these projects or to start their own. Provided by the British Council Germany and politik-digital.de.

my.barackobama.com - Community Engagement Tools

Over the past 21 months, millions of individuals have used My.BarackObama to organize their local communities on behalf of Barack Obama. The scale and size of this community and its work is unprecedented. Individuals created more than 35,000 local organizing groups, hosted over 200,000 events, and made millions of calls to neighbours about this campaign. There can be no question that these local, grassroots organizations played a critical role in Barack Obama's victory. What has made My.BarackObama unique hasn't been the technology itself, but the people who used the online tools to coordinate offline action. My.BarackObama has always been focused on using online tools to make real-world connections between people who are hungry to change politics. The online tools in My.BarackObama will live on, and people will continue to use the tools to participate, collaborate and interact, to bring about the promised change.

CitizenScape - eParticipation in Legislation Implementation

CitizenScape is an eParticipation Programme Trial Project that is integrating and testing Web 2.0 social networking Internet tools combined with offline outreach community activities in a socially purposeful way in concrete legislative and decision-making processes - specifically looking at engaging Citizens to debate and engage in the implementation of EU environmental legislation at a local level.

European Parliament Petitions Home Page

Any citizen of the European Union, or resident in a Member State, may, individually or in association with others, submit a petition to the European Parliament on a subject which comes within the European Union's fields of activity and which affects them directly. Any company, organisation or association with its headquarters in the European Union may also exercise this right of petition, which is guaranteed by the Treaty. A petition may take the form of a complaint or a request and may relate to issues of public or private interest.

Sending a request to the European Parliament's Citizens Unit

Before sending a request, would you first consult the FAQ section, where you will find answers to the questions most frequently asked. After you have sent your request electronically, you will receive an electronic acknowledgement that it has been received.

PETI - the European Parliament Petitions Committee

European Parliament's Committee responsible for: petitions and relations with the European Ombudsman. You can contact the Committee on Petitions by email at ip-PETI@europarl.europa.eu or by fax: +32 2 284 68 44 (Brussels)

UK "ePetitions Bill" 2009

UK Bill "Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction" will probably be law in 2009, defines Petitions and the UK procedures to respond to them.

Bristol ePetitions web site

Bristol City Council ePetitions web site allows allows you to support a petition by adding your name and address online. Information about the subject is also provided, to put the petition in context and help you decide whether to sign. You can also see who else has supported the petition (name and area only) or join in a discussion about it online.

Malmo ePetitions Web Site

Enables all citizens to create a proposal online, instead of the traditional name lists in paper form. This lets your suggestions and information to much easier reach a wider audience and you have the opportunity to collect more names to support your proposal, using a thread in the discussion forum, where anyone who signs up can discuss the proposal and related matters. It is also possible to add more in-depth background information for each initiative

Kingston ePetitions Web Site

The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames ePetitions website allows citizens to Support or Comment on a Petition Online, and/or use the Internet to Petition the Council. Each Online Petition has its own discussion forum, where supporters and visitors can discuss the petition and surrounding issues online. There is also space for supporting information, so that you can add any background necessary and put your petition in context.

ePetitions on Wikipedia

Wikipedia site on ePetitions or Internet petition. Interesting Australian, UK and US experience.

UK Government ePetitions Website

In the UK petitions have long been sent to the Prime Minister by post or delivered in person. Citizens can now both create and sign petitions on this website too, giving them the opportunity to reach a potentially wider audience and to deliver their petition directly to Downing Street.

iPetitions Web Site

Free online global petitions service that has been running for nearly 10 years. iPetitions provides easy-to-use online petition tools. You can customize your question list, you can set up filters to minimize fraud, and you can download a real-time database of signatures for your petition.

LobbyingForum Web Site

Privately owned and independent website that aims to provide a safe, effective and easy-to-use platform for lobbying, campaigning and discussing various topics. To participate in discussions and sign petitions or you can start your own campaign and collect signatures, create information archives, host discussions, etc. Open to individuals, companies and organizations and is free of charge.

GoPetition Website

Global private/non political petition hosting portal with global petition hosting services, flexible campaign tools software, customer service, and over 20,000 petitions so far. Good section on how to write an effective petition.

Scottish Parliament's ePetitions Website

Allows citizens to support a petition by adding their name and address online. Information about the subject is also provided, to put the petition in context and help you decide whether to sign. You can also see who else has supported the petition (name and country only) or join in a discussion about it online.

Online petitions in the European context

Blog on eParticipation, ePetitioning, FLOSS etc, by Peter Cruickshank of the International Teledemocracy Centre at Napier University.

U count 4 eu Initiative

Ucount4eu aims to rally European citizens from all the member states around the 2009 European Parliament elections, to raise their awareness of the importance of the European electoral process and how it affects their daily lives on a national level, and most importantly, to provide citizens with the means to contribute to, and impact, the debate on the issues that concern them most. They will provide Citizen Discussion forums and later, through targeted Petitions to the European Parliament on the top issues of concern for EU citizens. The ucount4eu campaign aims to gather at least one million signatures on each of the five planned citizen-driven petitions, to be forwarded to the newly elected Parliament for consideration and action accordingly.

Right to Petition the European Parliament

Right to Petition, Article 194 EU Treaty - "Any citizen of the Union, and any natural or legal person residing or having its registered office in a Member State, shall have the right to address, individually or in association with other citizens or persons, a petition to the European Parliament on a matter which comes within the Community's fields of activity and which affects him, her or it directly".

German Bundestag’s Pilot Project “Public Petitions” - Scientific Evaluation and Monitoring

The Petitions Committee of the German Bundestag launched a two-year public petition pilot scheme in September 2005. Looking after public petitions has led to new tasks for the employees of the German Bundestag. There have also been problems with the software used (operability for the petitioners, costs for system supervision, among other things). This is a methodically secure, independent scientific evaluation of the existing public petitions pilot scheme. See also http://www.tab.fzk.de/home_en.htm

eMPOWER - Empowering citizens to influence the decision making and policy formulation on environmental issues

An eParticipation Action project that is using eParticipation ICT tools to support ePetitioning to enable transparent, interactive and democratic communication processes, the results of which will be joint proposals, initiatives and viewpoints of NGOs and citizens regarding environmental issues such as global climate change, national parks and forests, oceans and biodiversity, green taxation, oil drilling, air pollution, water pollution and management, and more.

VIDI - Visualising the Impact of the legislation by analysing public DIscussions using statistical means

An eParticipation Action project that will provide an efficient toolset for an advance visualization of messages posted in an on-line discussion forum, that will support „monitoring“ and analyzing discussions. The ultimate goal is a better understanding of emer­ging arguments and ideas contributing to the policy making process.

HuWY : Hub Websites for Youth Participation

An eParticipation Action project that is supporting young people’s eParticipation in policies about the Internet and its governance, through a distributed discussion. HuWY partners provide information, support and organise influential audiences for young people’s suggestions. The Hub websites hold supporting information and structured space for results and feedback from policy-makers. Young people choose the topics and questions, host the discussions on their web pages and post the results on the Hubs

VoiceS: integrating Semantics, Social Software and Serious Games into eParticipation

An eParticipation Action project that is complementary to the VOICE project (www.give-your-voice.eu). VoiceS is integrating a serious game and a semantic search function into the existing German and Spanish VoicE platforms. The project was launched on January 1st, 2009 and will run for two years

U@MareNostrum - eParticipation in the Mediterranean coastal zone

An eParticipation Action project that will give local people a say in the management of water and marine environmental protection in the French Riviera, Valencia and the Ionian Islands and allowing them to monitor how relevant EU legislation is implemented in their area.

WAVE - Welcoming Argument Visualisation to Europe

An eParticipation Action project that is using Argument Visualisation techniques to make more accessible and easier to understand the impact of EU environmental legislation on climate change. The project will be carried out in Lithuania, France and the UK.

European Parliament Committee on Petitions - 2008 Draft Report

Draft Report on the EP PETI Committee's work during 2008.

OSOR.eu - Open Source Observatory and Repository for European public administrations

The Open Source Observatory and Repository for European public administrations (OSOR) is a platform for exchanging information, experiences and FLOSS-based code for use in public administrations. It offers: international news on Open Source topics; a repository with code and documentation on software for public administrations; a state-of-the art forge for working together

Evaluating eParticipation Projects: Practical Examples and Outline of an Evaluation Framework

ePractice Journal 4 March 2009. Focuses on government-driven eParticipation activities especially within the area of consultation and deliberation, and takes into account practical experience of the evaluation of a four-year transnational project including more than 30 eParticipation pilot cases. A common feature of these pilots is the combination of multiple communication channels and media which promote engagement. It is shown that the strength of the Internet mainly concerns its potential to provide transparency and to converge interests and information in a process through carefully elaborated websites. A layered model of an evaluation framework is presented with distinctive criteria, indicators and methods which are seen as an important step to support “real” evaluation.

eParticipation edition of the European Journal of ePractice n° 7

March 2009. It is clear that many have disengaged from formal politics, voter turnout is falling, membership of political parties is declining, and there is a widespread sense of a loss of trust in government and politicians. However there is a surge of grass-root, often single issue engagement in policy making, people generally are more aware of public policy issues, and there are more outlets and channels enabling participation. Much of this is supported, and in fact driven forward, by new ICT tools. From the more traditional emails and electronic forums, to the Web 2.0 phenomenon of social networking, and applications which enable users to upload their own content and manipulate the content of others, as well as facilitate deliberation and debate.

FOSDEM 2009

FOSDEM is an annual get together of open source developers in Brussels. The goal is to provide Free Software and Open Source developers and communities a place to meet to get in touch with other developers and projects, be informed about the latest developments in the Free Software and Open Source world, attend interesting talks and presentations held in large conference rooms by Free Software and Open Source project leaders and committers on various topics; and to promote the development and the benefits of Free Software and Open Source solutions. As EuroPetition is an opensource project, attending the event in Febraury 2010 might be a valuable learning opportunity Participation and attendance is totally free, though the organization gratefully accepts donationals and sponsorships.

Scottish Parliaments Public Petitions Committee blog page

Has an excellent video on Petitioning and how to petition the Public Petitions Committee of the Scottish Parliament.

Report of inquiry into the Scottish Parliament's public petitions process

Excellent insight to the Scottish Parliament’s petitioning & ePetitioning process. It concludes very positively with many suggestions such as the need for more awareness & publicity of the petitioning process, more outreach external meetings, more two-way dialogue, ‘young peoples petitions’, multiple languages, direct links from NGO & community groups’ websites, ‘petition ambassadors’ as part of the engagement work, a video overview of the public petitions process, facility to post videos and photographs about petitions, a public petitions blog, regular pod casts, redevelopment of the e-petition system, will undertake further in-depth inquiries, welcome the introduction by local councils of locally based public petitioning processes, and an annual public petitions debate in the Chamber.

Digital Britain Report

Digital Britain strategic vision to ensure that the UK is at the leading edge of the global digital economy. Provides actions and recommendations to promote and protect talent and innovation in creative industries, to modernise TV and radio frameworks and support local news, and introduces policies to maximise the social and economic benefits from digital technologies. As well as the report, this page has very useful related links.

MOMENTUM Report on the eParticipation Preparatory Action Projects

Report on the Objectives, Structure and Status of eParticipation Initiative Projects in the European Union, produced by MOMENTUM. Contains a detailed analysis of the 20 monitored projects based on forms that were populated and filled in by the projects. MOMENTUM went through a detailed qualitative & quantitative analysis of the gathered data and various conclusions were drawn.

E-Participation Has 'Weak' Democratic Effect

'E-participation' - the use of online tools to help people engage with the democratic process - has a "surprisingly weak" effect on democratic decision-making, according to a new study. In Headstar's eGovernment bulletin: 'Empowering communities to influence local decision making - A systematic review of the evidence' produced by academics from De Montfort University and University of Southampton for the Department for Communities and Local Government. (see summary at www.headstar.com/egblive/?p=229)

Commission should put forward a proposal to adopt the European Citizens' Initiative, say MEPs

The Commission is being called on by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs to prepare a proposal to adopt the European Citizen's Initiative, once the Lisbon Treaty has been brought into force.

MOMENTUM Newsletter, July09 - Article on ECI.

With an article & links on PETI, view them in action for a unique insight into their work (Last meeting before elections - 30th April 2009 which includes a discussion on a new PETI 'code of conduct'). Plus links to a video of MEP Diana Wallis discussing the ECI from her own perspective. Citizen's Initiative, once the Lisbon Treaty has been brought into force.

European Citizens's Initiative video

Diana Wallis, Liberal Democrat MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber, UK, on the European Citizens's Initiative and how she became involved.

ePetitions Preserves an Old British Tradition

Article on ePetitioning the UK Prime Minister's Office, in the Intergovernmental Solutions Newsletter, Fall 2009, on "Engaging Citizens in Government" - some other very interesting short stories from around the world in its 44 pages.

Public consultation on the European Citizens' Initiative

The Lisbon Treaty introduces a new form of public participation in European Union policy shaping, the European citizens’ initiative, which enables one million citizens who are nationals of a significant number of Member States to call directly on the European Commission to bring forward an initiative of interest to them in an area of EU competence. Before citizens can start exercising this new right, a few ground rules and procedures have to be laid down in an EU regulation. Given the importance of this new tool for citizens, civil society and stakeholders across the EU, the Commission has opened a broad public consultation in order to seek the views of all interested parties on how the citizens' initiative should work in practice. The Green Paper, which launches this consultation, gives an overview of the legal, administrative and practical issues that will need to be addressed by the Regulation and asks a number of questions to which interested parties are invited to respond by 31st January 2010.

Economist's rather sceptical article on the ECI

Allons, citoyens de l'Europe - Yet another dubious provision in the Lisbon treaty: citizens' initiatives, The Economist, Jan 14th 2010

ECI - Power to the People ?

Power to the people? By Constant Brand, EuropeanVoice.com, 25.03.2010 / 05:18 CET Initiative is supposed to give citizens a direct say, but concerns remain over red tape and the time-frames involved. Doubts are growing over the likely effectiveness of the European Union's experiment in connecting with its citizens through direct democracy.

Commission proposal for the ECI Regulation

On 31 March 2010, the European Commission adopted the proposal for a Regulation on the citizens' initiative, and its implementation procedures.

ECI Implementation Issues

A good summary of the issues that are being seen with the ECI. Mostly around the bureaucracy of the ECI registration process, and questioning the need for national ID numbers at the signature stage

European Parliament Petitions Committee 2009 Report

A draft of the European Parliament Petitions Committee 2009 Report issued on 12 April 2010. Interesting observations on petition topics, and how better to use their online website, which is now geenrating most of their petitions.

Gov 2.0 & Access to Information – recent developments in Proactive Disclosure & Open Data

April10 background paper from Canada Library of Parliament gives a lot of good overview information on open information/open data in eight different countries.

EU Commissioner vows to block 'silly' petitions

The European Commission will filter citizens' petitions to make sure that "silly" initiatives like abolishing the EU are blocked, Maroš Šefčovič, a vice-president of the EU executive, said in an interview.

ECI EU democracy instrument continues to cause headaches

It is meant to be the most clear democratising feature of the EU's new rulebook, the Lisbon Treaty, but implementation of the "citizen's initiative" is a political minefield and is prompting much discussion about the danger of the tool turning into a mockery of democracy.

What is a Petition - video

Excellent video from Petities.nl on what a petition is and how it works.

LIVING EUROPE “European Public Space” on daily life and daily discussions in countries and regions all over Europe.

LIVING EUROPE gives a direct and easy access to interesting web sources (including translation) in each EU country, as a concrete and operational step to create a “European Public Space”. LIVING EUROPE is started at the initiative of the Club of Venice – an informal gathering of the communication directors of European governments. The technical back up is assured by the JRC ( Joint Research Centre of the EU ).

Campaign for a citizen-friendly European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI)

Citizens’ initiative rights to be workable need to be designed in a citizens-friendly and useable way. This is what this campaign is all about. Read more about the essential specifics and get engaged as well in this decisive phase. In order to ensure that the ECI can fulfil its potential to engage citizens in EU issues, they urgently suggest 10 modifications to the ECI regulation, which was proposed by the EU-Commission on March 31st 2010.

Your ECI – Community dedicated to ECI matters relating to the Digital Domain

Focused on the practical implementation of the digital components of any proposed ECI. It is for expert practitioners in the field of digital participation, to contribute to a vision for the ideal digital implementation of the ECI. It is a non official forum founded by a core of experts from a range of Member States with backing from a growing number of MEPs. Many of the members have been involved in research projects and pilots which directly relate to existing challenges such as identity, authentication and cross border complexities.

California’s love-hate relationship with citizens’ initiatives

A group of European scholars and ECI-Campaign activists went to California to learn as much as they could about the Californian initiative process. Their goal? Learn what to do (and perhaps not to do) as we design a new initiative process of our own in Europe.

Directory of e-Petitions Applications UK

During 2010 the Consultation Institute UK worked extensively on the ‘Duty to Respond to Petitions’, publishing Briefing Papers and hosting Specialist Roundtables to discuss the potential impact of the Duty for local authorities. As part of this wide-ranging research they published The Directory of e-petition Applications. The aim of the Directory is to provide local authorities with a reference point for e-petition software suppliers. At present there is no source where local authorities can see, first, who the suppliers are that sell e-petition software and, second, a place to compare the suppliers and their offerings side by side. The main section of the Directory contains details of the four contributing suppliers; CMIS, INOVEM, Public-i, and Objective. The names of the other suppliers are also listed. In addition to the supplier entries, the Directory contains a number of articles written by Institute staff and members of the petitioning community. The articles feature essential information on the e-petition legislation, the features of a good e-petition facility, whether an authority chooses to develop its own facility over buying one, and an article on whether e-petitioning will lead to a rise in petitions overall. In the final section details of future skills, training and references are listed. The Council aims to assist UK councils to make informed decisions about acquiring and implementing e-petition facilities which, under Section 10 of the UK Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009, have to be put into operation by December 15 2010. For further information and to request a copy of the Directory please contact Sam Cranston at Tel: 01767 318 350 or E-mail: sam@consultationinstitute.org

Participedia - user generated articles on participatory governance throughout the world

Participedia is a tool for strengthening democracy. Based on a wiki platform, its main content consists of user-generated articles which describe and assess participatory governance throughout the world. Including articles on participatory methods, such as deliberative polling, citizens' assemblies, and participatory budgeting, as well as articles about the organizations that sponsor, implement, and study participatory governance. Over time, Participedia aims to garner hundreds and perhaps thousands of such articles. Please contribute articles!

NET-EUCEN - European Network of Stakeholders for Enhancing User Centricity in eGovernance

NET-EUCEN is a network of stakeholders in the Governance and Policy Modeling domains belonging to all the European Countries. The network will offer strategic guidance for policy makers and senior government officials responsible for commissioning and using evaluation of user centricity and related public engagement into the administration service shaping. The project looks at new thinking and practice in European Countries in (a) User-focused e-Government, (b) Multi-channel service delivery, (c) Approaches to common business processes, (d) E-Government coordination, (e) Measuring the benefits of ICT investments. NET-EUCEN is a CIP PSP ICT Thematic Network.

EuroPetition on EuroNews

"Europetition: a way to influence decision-makers" Europetition is a new way for people to have a greater say in how the European Union develops its policies. What exactly is it and how does it work? 30/09/2010.

Sustainable eParticipation - JeDEM, Journal of eDemocracy & Open Government

Issue of the JeDEM, Journal of eDemocracy and Open Government, which focuses on "Sustainable eParticipation" and includes invited papers by Mechthild Rohen (Head of Unit, ICT for Government and Public Services, European Commission), Thanassis Chrissafis (Coordinator of eParticipation, European Commission), Hille Hinsberg (Estonian Government Office) , Paul Johnston (Cisco) as well as peer-reviewed papers and case studies. Issue created in cooperation with PEP-NET, the Pan European eParticipation Network.

German Government 2.0 in Betaphase

eParticipation offerings and use of Web 2.0 applications in Germany’s 50 largest cities and 16 federal states in the areas of urban planning, budgetary planning, complaints/suggestions and citizen services within a four-step policy cycle were analyzed. The results underline that informational integration of citizens in government outweighs consultative approaches. Therefore, this study concludes that—for the 66 cases studied— German Government 2.0 activities are still in beta phase.

CROSSROAD aims to identify the key research challenges of ICT for Governance & Policy Modelling

CROSSROAD (http://www.crossroad-eu.net) is a European Commission FP7 Support Action (FP7-ICT-2009-4) that aims to identify the key research challenges in the field of ICT for Governance and Policy Modelling and ultimately outline a concrete, participative roadmap for future research, fully embraced by the research and practice communities.

Internet, Politics, Policy 2010: An Impact Assessment

Some interesting paublished as part of 'Internet, Politics, Policy 2010' - an academic conference that subjects the relationship between the Internet, Politics and Policy to multi-disciplinary scrutiny. Organised by the Oxford Internet Institute (OII, University of Oxford) on behalf of the OII-edited academic journal Policy and Internet, the conference took place over two days (16-17 September 2010) at St Anne's College in central Oxford, UK. Organisers: Professor Helen Margetts, Academic Convenor (Oxford Internet Institute), Dr Sandra Gonzalez-Bailon (Oxford Internet Institute), Dr Stephen Ward (University of Salford), David Sutcliffe (Oxford Internet Institute) Also see some thoughts about a couple of the papers at http://www.edemocracyblog.com/edemocracy-blog/number-10s-road-toll-petition-success-or-failure/ and http://www.edemocracyblog.com/edemocracy-blog/why-parties-need-to-embrace-complexity/

+Spaces - Positive Spaces

+Spaces (dubbed Positive Spaces) aims to provide novel technologies and instruments that will allow government bodies to measure public opinion on a large scale and seize the outcomes of prospective policy measures by leveraging the power of the communities. +Spaces will address this issue by using Virtual spaces including social networks such as Facebook or Twitter and virtual worlds like Open Wonderland, for policy simulation. +Spaces envisions to act as a mediator between government applications and virtual spaces. From the +Spaces perspective, these platforms form a vast reserve of group knowledge that, once aggregated and properly processed, can be incorporated in the policy making process. The project aims to provide governments with tools for testing their legislation in several virtual spaces; as well as with data mining tools for tracking the users' reactions.

Citizens' imitative OR well-orchestrated campaign?

First 'Citizens' Initiative' to call for GM crop freeze. A petition for a Europe free of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) has hit the one million signatories target and will be handed to European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, campaigners have announced

MEP wants to scrap 'entry threshold' for citizens' petitions

The European Commission has dismissed as impractical suggestions by MEPs to scrap the 100,000 signature requirement needed to legally file a petition under the European Citizens' Initiative (ECI).

Political Innovation - Innovative Conversational Politics

The Political Innovation project is a cashless incubator. We want to use the distributed intelligence of the blogosphere to help sharpen some great ideas about how politics can change. And then, we want to help them find the cash / collaborative help they need to succeed. Some very interesting essays. We’re looking for political innovations that can work. We’re here to help innovators realise their plans – to help them find the sponsors, customers, collaborators or partners that they will need to get their ideas off the ground.

European Commission's eGovernment website

The European Commission's eGovernment website has been redesigned. Have a look, to learn more about ICT for Government and Public Services. This website aims to provide information on EU policies in the field of eGovernment, and the funding programmes which support concrete initiatives to improve public services. For more general information on eGovernment, visit the Information Society thematic portal.

Putting citizens first - Commission's eGovernment Thematic Portal

European Commission's Information Society eGovernment Thematic Portal. eGovernment is the use of Information & Communication Technologies (ICTs) to make public administrations more efficient and effective, promoting growth by cutting red tape. This is something which anyone who has spent hours waiting in line in a government building can appreciate.

European Citizens Initiative on Wikipedia

 

European Parliament & Council reach agreement on the Regulation on the citizens' initiative.

See also a very useful set of FAQs at http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/10/683&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

eParticipation ePractice Workshop, Brussels, 7/12/2010

Contains all presentations from this very useful workshop, including reports from the eParticipation Preparatory Action projects (EMPOWER, EUROPETITION, U@MARENOSTRUM, VIDI, VOICES, HUWY, and WAVE), and other inputs.

The European Citizens' Initiative

The European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) is the EU's foremost instrument of direct democracy and the first of its kind in a transnational context. Introduced by the Lisbon Treaty, it is expected to be used from 2012. This an excellent summary of the status of ECI's as of Feb 2011, covering Milestones to date, Policy Summary, Discussion of the issues involved, Positions of the main players, and a set of Links.

Google Public Data Explorer

The Google Public Data Explorer makes large public datasets easy to explore, visualize and communicate. As the charts and maps animate over time, the changes in the world become easier to understand. You don't have to be a data expert to navigate between different views, make your own comparisons, and share your findings. See also http://www.gapminder.org/ and http://www.ted.com/speakers/hans_rosling.html

Participatory Budgeting Worldwide - Study

"Learning from the South: Participatory Budgeting Worldwide – an Invitation to Global Cooperation" By Yves Sintomer, Carsten Herzberg, Giovanni Allegretti – with the collaboration of Anja Röcke. This report provides a first over- view of participatory budgets in the world. It aims to present and analyse existing cases using a coherent definiion and typology. This report, however, is not the result of a separate research project, but is designed to facilitate future research on the topic. The full report can be downloaded from http://bit.ly/pbworldstudy

Participatory Budgeting - Best Practice Examples

The Bertelsmann Foundation has posted on YouTube videos of the 7 finalists of the Reinhard-Mohn Prize 2011 Vitalizing Democracy, based on 158 cases of democratic innovations that were submitted from all over the world. Amongst the 7 finalists chosen by the jury, 3 cases are related to innovations in the field of Participatory Budgeting (2 Brazil, 1 Argentina), which have the usage of ICT as an essential component of their participatory process. (a) La Plata (Argentina): Participatory Budgeting uses SMS-voting and electronic ballots. http://bit.ly/laplatavideo (b) Belo Horizonte (Brazil) Co-Governance: part of Belo Horizontes participatory budgeting includes Internet and interactive voice response (IVR) voting. http://bit.ly/belovideo, (c) Recife (Brazil) Participatory Budgeting: includes electronic ballots and Internet voting. http://bit.ly/recifevideo

Commission launches public consultation on eSignatures and eIdentification

The European Commission is asking citizens and other interested parties how electronic signatures and electronic identification (eID) and authentication can help the development of the European Digital Single Market. Currently, difficulties in verifying people's identities and signatures are a significant factor holding back the development of the EU's online economy. Electronic signatures and electronic identification (eID) and authentication can be an important tool to enable both users and providers to rely on secure, trustworthy and easy-to-use online services but must work in all Member States to be effective. The results of this consultation will feed into the Commission's review of the existing eSignature Directive and the preparation of a planned initiative on the mutual recognition of electronic identification and authentication. Boosting e-commerce, e-business, and making it easier to undertake administrative procedures online in the Single Market are important aspects of the Digital Agenda for Europe. The online consultation runs until 15 April 2011.

Budget eParticipation Links

Excellent compilation of a list of links of particpatory budget sites. This should be helpful for people interested in citizen participation, online tools, and different degrees of dialogue and deliberation.

JeDEM - eJournal of eDemocracy and Open Government

The eJournal of eDemocracy and Open Government (JeDEM) provides researchers and practitioners the opportunity to advance the practice and understanding of eDemocracy, eGovernment, eParticipation. The journal aims to bridge innovative, insightful and stimulating research, testing and findings with practice and the work conducted by governments, NPOs, NGOs and professionals. Given the different backgrounds of the editors, JeDEM encourages articles which come from different disciplines or adopt an interdisciplinary approach, including eVoting, ePolitics, eSociety, business IT, applied computer gaming and simulation, cyberpsychology, usability, decision sciences, marketing, economics, psychology, sociology, media studies, communication studies, political science, philosophy, law, policy, legislation, and ethics. JeDEM provides up-to-date articles with ideas to be discussed, used and implemented, whilst at the same time also being a repository of knowledge.

Community Information Toolkit - Building Stronger Communities Through Information Exchange

The Community Information Toolkit will help community leadersharness the power of information to advance their goals for a better community. It offers a process and a simple, easy-to-use set of tools to help take stock of your community’s news and information flow and take action to improve it. In our dynamic and increasingly digital world, the availability and use of credible news and information is one of the most powerful elements of community change. It underpins our ability to build strong communities and to achieve results we want to see in education, public safety, environmental protection and other important areas. Yet, how do we assess the health of our local news and media environments and the impact it has on our work? This toolkit is designed to do just that – to help you assess your local information system and take action to strengthen it. With everything from a scavenger hunt to community discussions focused on news topics, this Toolkit Version 1.0 offers ways to take stock of your local media environment and advance your priorities through the lens of information. We invite you to take up this issue and innovate with us. We hope you will be inspired to test the tools in your community and share your experience to create improved Toolkits 2.0 and beyond. The Community Information Toolkit rests on important groundwork laid out by the Knight Commission on Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy.

ePolitics - one-stop shop for tools & tactics of online campaigning

A very good introduction to the world of doing politics and advocacy online, as a craft, focusing on what methods work and when, and without selling a particular product or consultancy. The nuts and bolts of actually using the web, email and related technologies to help you spread your ideas around the world and mobilize other people to help.

Study on eGovernment Scenarios for 2020 and input to the 2015 Action Plan

Orientation Report - In Nov 2009, European Ministers formulated in Malmö a new joint vision and policy priorities for eGovernment in Europe for 2015. Since then, the European Commission has engaged in an open and collaborative discussion with stakeholders to translate this vision into concrete and actionable eGovernment policies for the period 2010-2015, referred to as eGovernment 2015 Action Plan. To serve this ambition, the objective of this study has been to collect and analyse high quality inputs relevant for contributing to the elaboration of the eGovernment 2015 Action Plan. Over the course of this project, the study has provided concrete input to the eGovernment 2015 Action Plan in terms of assessing objectives and validated priorities, delivering innovative ideas and proposing a range of policy actions in support of these priorities. See also http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/egovernment/studies/completed_studies/index_en.htm

PADGETS - Policy Gadgets Mashing Underlying Group Knowledge in Web 2.0 Media

PADGETS is an ICT for Governance and Policy Modelling co-funded by the European commission under the FP7. The vision of the PADGETS is to bring together two well established domains, the mashup architectural approach of web 2.0 for creating web applications (gadgets) and the methodology of system dynamics in analyzing complex system behaviour. The objective is to design, develop and deploy a prototype toolset that will allow policy makers to graphically create web applications that will be deployed in the environment of underlying knowledge in Web 2.0 media. For this reason, the project introduces the concept of Policy Gadget (Padget) – similarly to the approach of gadget applications in web 2.0 – to represent a micro web application that combines a policy message with underlying group knowledge in social media (in the form of content and user activities) and interacts with end users in popular locations (such as social networks, blogs, forums, news sites, etc) in order to get and convey their input to policy makers. Through the PADGETS platform any policy can become a reusable and communicable web application to be used in relation to underlying content and social activities over the web. Policy makers will be able to set up such applications on their own and use them to communicate their policies to the public. People can use these applications as they use everyday services and policy makers can track the results of this interaction back to their policy making process to assist them in reaching solid decisions that represent society’s input and aspirations.

From e-Participation to Online Deliberation

Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Online Deliberation, OD2010. Leeds, UK, 30 June-2 July 2010. Editors : Fiorella De Cindio, Ann Machintosh, Cristian Peraboni. Contains the refereed papers presented at OD2010. The first time the conference has been held in Europe, after 3 conferences in the United States: the first one, “Developing and Using Online Tools for Deliberative Democracy”, organized at Carnegie Mellon University in 2003; (http://web.archive.org/web/20060314061609/http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/style/Seminar.html), the second on “Online Deliberation: Design, Research, and Practice” was in 2004 at Stanford University (http://www.online-deliberation.net/conf2005/), the third one, “Tools for Participation, Collaboration, Deliberation and Decision Support”, in 2008 at the School of Information of University of California at Berkeley (http://www.publicsphereproject.org/events/diac08/). While much progress has been made in online deliberation many challenges remain. These challenges require collaboration and research from a number of academic disciplines. The papers in this volume address the challenges, representing further innovative developments in the field from both social and technological perspectives. The volume is divided into two sections: full research papers describing completed research and exploratory research papers describing work-in-progress and ongoing research. All papers were peer reviewed. Fifteen research papers are published focusing on topics ranging from argument mapping and argumentation to deliberative governance. Eight exploratory research papers are included which consider issues such as a new agenda for online deliberation and ethnographic exploration of deliberation.

Vitalizing Democracy through Participation - Reinhard Mohn Prize

The face of democracy is rapidly changing. All around the world new ways to involve citizens in politics are being tested and becoming established. This platform was launched to collect and discuss projects from all over the world that help to "Vitalize democracy through participation" - and to identify a winner for the Reinhard Mohn Prize 2011. You can find projects that specifically interest you by (a) Highlight projects as personal favorites, (b) Search projects according to their scale, method(s) used, form of influence, participant selection, project type and status, (c) Receive updates on favorite projects via email newsletter.

U@MARENOSTRUM Project Final Results

The Consortium of the U@MARENOSTRUM project is announcing the end of the project. The project was specifically designed in the guidelines of the eParticipation Call for Proposals 2008 and was co-funded by the European Commission. The project was developed between 1st of January 2009- 31st of March 2011 by cooperation of the following entities: GFI Benelux (Belgium), Gov2u (Greece), The Region of Ionian Islands (Greece), Hellenic Centre for Marine Research– Greece, Foundation Comunidad Valenciana - Región Europea (Spain), and Directorate General for Modernization of Valencia (Spain). U@MARENOSTRUM aimed to facilitate the development of an online dialogue between citizens and official representatives of the participating regions (Ionian Islands Region in Greece and the Valencia Region in Spain) on issues regarding water protection and management in the Mediterranean. The main objective of U@MARENOSTRUM was to contribute in the enhancement of citizens’ engagement with the political process via their active participation in the online dialogue. eParticipation Results The online discussion between citizens and public authorities of the participating regions was initiated with the launch of the platforms. The Greek platform hosted by Ionian Islands Region was launched on January 2010, while the Spanish platform hosted by the Valencia Region on April 2010. With the end of the project in March 2011 the U@MARENOSTRUM final eParticipation results are encouraging and indicate that: On both platforms 1883 registered users have participated in the Forum with 1313 posted arguments, on 120 environmental topics connected to 21 Public Consultations regarding water protection and management in the Mediterranean. Moreover, registered users participated in the platform with 228 markers overall on the interactive maps, 1005 electronic signatures overall on the 3 ePetitions hosted on the platforms, 619 answers overall in 6 online surveys, while 22 Electronic Letters have been sent to Officials of Ionian Islands Region by citizen-users. To view the U@MARENOSTRUM platforms click on the links bellow: 1. For Greece: http://uatmarenostrumionianislands.gr/ 2. For Spain: http://marenostrum.gva.es/ For further information regarding the project and its activities please visit the informational website of the project at: www.uatmarenostrum.eu U@MARENOSTRUM is a project co-financed under the 2008 e-Participation call

EuroPetition News on the CEMR Website

News Item "Citizens can benefit from open-source e-Petitions service via social networking", on the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR) website on 14/04/2011.

Using Online Tools to Engage – and be Engaged by –The Public

How can online tools help you engage citizens in public decision-making and problem-solving? What are the most common mistakes being made by public managers and other leaders as they try to work with the public online? In a given scenario, which tools and tactics seem most appropriate and effective? This report from the IBM Center for the Business of Government, delves into these questions, describes a range of scenarios and tactics, and gives real-world examples of online engagement. It highlights over 40 different technologies in use today to support various kinds of public participation. The report is also something of an experiment for the IBM Center. For the first time, they have created both a hard copy and an electronic interactive version. The online version of the report is a ready resource that will grow over time, based on evolving best practices. See www.businessofgovernment.org/report/using-online-tools-engage-public . And while you are at that site, see also Ines Mergel’s new report on Using Wikis in Government for more research and guidance on using online tools for engagement.

The e-(R)evolution will not be funded

An interdisciplinary and critical analysis of the developments and troubles of EU-funded eParticipation. This "work-in-progress" article reflects, from a holistic and interdisciplinary perspective, on the challenges surrounding the development of eParticipation in Europe, with special focus on EU programs. To this end, first, it assesses the field’s practical and theoretical achievements and limitations, and corroborates that the progress of eParticipation in the last decade has not been completely satisfactory in spite of the significant share of resources invested to support it. Second, it attempts to diagnose and shed light on some of the field’s systemic problems and challenges which are responsible for this lack of development. The domain’s maladies are grouped under tree main categories: (1) lack of a proper understanding and articulation with regard to the “Participation” field; (2) eParticipation community’s ‘founding biases’ around e-Government and academy; and (3) inadequacy of traditional Innovation Support Programmes to incentivize innovation in the eParticipation field. In the context of the ‘Europe 2020 Strategy’ and its flagship initiative “Innovation Union”, its final section provides several recommendations which should contribute to enhance the effectiveness of future European eParticipation actions.

MyUniversity project launchs eParticipation University portals

Launched on October 1st, 2010, MyUniversity is a two and a half year project that will demonstrate how the universities could use an array of specific e-Participation tools for involving university members and stakeholders in transparent higher education decision-making processes at local, national and EU level. MyUniversity is currently supported by the European Commission (ICT Policy Support Programme) and involves 13 partners from 7 EU Member States: Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece, Lithuania, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden. The project is partially funded under the ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP) as part of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme by the European Community (http://ec.europa.eu/ict_psp). Nine eParticipation portals for universities have been launched in order to offer to university members and to local, national and EU stakeholders in the higher education system an opportunity to collaborate within the decision – making processes that address several of the Bologna action lines. The portals are based on the same software solution developed within the MyUniversity project and will run in pilot phase for a period of 20 months. These portals give the opportunity to the university work groups to interact with the higher education stakeholders and provide input to the national and European associations where they belong. Moreover, the university members who are active in the Bologna decision-making process can use the e-Participation tools to interact with other university members and easily extract conclusions that will be used as direct input to their work. In addition, higher education decision makers of all levels (university, national, European), could launch on these portals several e-Participation processes related to different decision making activities and thus clearly communicate the value of such participation in their final decision.

ePetitions - Discussion in UK Parliament, 8 Sep 2011

Oral Answers to Questions on the UK Government's ePetitions website and intentions in the UK Parliament on 8th September 2011.

OnLine Collection Open Source Software for ECI

Open source Web tool to serve for the online data collection of citizens supporting a given initiative, as outlined by the European Citizens\' Initiative regulation rules and recommendations. The application will enable the organisers and fellow citizens to support a given initiative in a more efficient manner as opposed to paper forms. The tool will also streamline both data collection and verification by the competent authorities. The main features of the OnLine Collection System are: - Secure signature collection for European Citizen Initiave - Forms available in 23 official languages - Export of signatories to be analyzed by national authorities - Application easy to deploy In the next releases: - Additional languages could be added - Improvements coming from the software community could be incorporated (usability, bugs fixing, ...) If you want to collaborate with this project, please contact the OCS Project team in OSOR. Financed under ISA programme of the European Commission.

CeDEM11 Proceedings - Conference for E-Democracy and Open Government

CeDEM11 Conference for E-Democracy and Open Government, held at Danube University Krems on 05.05.2011 - 06.05.2011. Details of CeDEM12 at http://www.donau-uni.ac.at/en/department/gpa/telematik/edemocracy-conference/edem/vid/14978/index.php?URL=/en/department/gpa/telematik/edemconferences/14978

eCitizen II – Towards citizen-centered eGovernment in European cities and regions

AnInterreg IVC financed project that began in January 2010, to support European cities and regions in their joint efforts to accelerate eGovernment through exploiting established networks, gained experiences and good practices to improve interaction between citizens and public authorities, better involving citizens in local decision-making and contributing to change in operational culture and attitudes within public administrations. As a follow-up project, eCitizen II brings added-value to interregional eGovernment cooperation focusing on sharing the accumulated knowledge, experiences, best practices, and transferring them between the more advanced and less experienced cities and regions throughout Europe. This cooperation aims at stimulating new approaches and understanding in city and regional administrations of engaging with citizens and developing citizen-centred eServices. The project involves decision- and policy-makers, demonstrate benefits of the eGovernment and the best eParticipation practices in different public sectors and identify future prospects to ensure support to further acceleration of eGovernment.

Best Practice e-Participation Manual

This e-Manual is from the Interreg IVC financed project "eCitizen II – Towards citizen-centered eGovernment in European cities and regions“. e-Participation means the use of technoloy for enabling and strengthening citizen participation in democratic desicion-making processes. This eManual describes the main steps that local authorities have to go through for favouring e-participation. Each step is exemplified with cases – success-stories and also those, which represent the failure, but at the same time very valuable lesson. In order to get more information of how to use this solution, you can visit the help section of the wiki of the eManual.

European Citizens' Initiative Commission Website, Register & Collection Software

Website provides all information, tools, services and Register for the European Citizen Initiatives (ECIs) procedure that will go live on 1st April 2012. The site allows downloading of the open source Online Collection Software (OCS) system (at https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/software/ocs/release/100).

A Managers Guide to Evaluating Citizen Participation

The report provides a practical assessment guide for program managers so they can assess whether their participation efforts are making a difference. The report lays out evaluation steps for both the implementation and management of citizen participation initiatives as well as how to assess the impact of a particular citizen participation initiative. An appendix provides helpful worksheets, as well. Agencies in coming years will face greater fiscal pressures and they will also face increased citizen demands for greater participation in designing and overseeing their policies and programs. Understanding how to most effectively engage citizens in their government will likely increase in importance. This evaluation guide could be a useful framework for government managers at all levels in helping them determine the value of their citizen participation initiatives. This is published by the IBM Center for The Business of Government.

Civic Engagement & Local eGovernment: Social Networking Comes of Age

Report by Karen Mossberger, Ph.D., mossberg@uic.edu & Yonghong Wu, Ph.D., yonghong@uic.edu, of the Department of Public Administration, University of Illilnois Chicago. This study examined features on local government websites that could contribute to civic engagement, through 1) information about government and community, and 2) through interactive or participatory opportunities online. The study conducted a content analysis of government websites in the 75 largest U.S. cities and 20 largest Illinois cities between March and the beginning of May 2011, using a composite score to rank the results. Comparing the results to a previous 2009 study finds that there has been some change overall in the two years, as many cities that were further behind have moved up in the ranking due to increasing their social networking activities. Executive Summary is at www.uic.edu/cuppa/ipce/CELocalEGovSMExSum2012.pdf

eParticipation needs to be carefully integrated into the complex world of existing participation processes

While technical problems can sink eParticipation initiatives, the core challenges are on the social side. Ella Taylor-Smith discusses what eParticipation actually means and how it should be evaluated in this Blog post

Digital Engagement Cookbook

A new digital engagement database is launched by ParticiTech and Kind of Digital in association with Consumer Focus (UK). www.digitalengagement.org is different from other digital engagement databases in that it is a methods repository, not case study database. The website also doubles as a search engine, allowing methods to be matched based on a set of simple input riteria relating to the participation characteristics. The site aims to help ctizens explore the new opportunities that the digital world offers for engaging with and empowering citizens and consumers. It contains one of the most comprehensive, categorised collections of Digital Engagement methods on the web. The site defines "digital engagement" as the use of digital tools and channels to help citizens and consumers to mobilise around an issue or make more informed decisions.

CitizenHouse.eu : one stop shop to your European Rights

CitizenHouse.eu aims to help European citizens enforce their rights. CitizenHouse.eu is a one-stop shop covering complaints, access to documents, petitions, requests to the European ombudsman and citizens’ initiatives. The emphasis with this new service is on collective action and problem solving to give citizens concerns greater weight. Information and advice about European rights is often available, but on how to actually enforce the rights and overcome the barriers there are often no quick answers. This new service will fill that gap. This is the first stage in an European Citizen Action Service (ECAS) project to build a European civil society house in order to reduce the gap between the EU and citizens. The main priority now is the start of European Citizens’ Initiatives (ECIs, the one million signatures), which came into force on 1 April 2012. As the report of the ECAS/Democracy international conference of 20 March 2012 makes clear, there are still problems with the application of the regulation. There is a need for impartial and supportive advice on the legal, campaigning and technical challenges of using this new collective agenda setting right. We are providing such advice and working with others to create a multi-disciplinary helpdesk, independent of political and commercial interests and the EU institutions.

Summary of CeDEM12 - Conference for E-Democracy and Open Government 2012

CeDEM12 - Conference for E-Democracy and Open Government 2012 3-4 May 2012, Danube University Krems, Austria, see In this blog-post you can find articles, slides, photos and more about CeDEM12: http://tinyurl.com/CeDEM12summary Online publication of conference proceedings will follow at www.donau-uni.ac.at/cedem