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