How Innovation Ecosystems Foster Citizen Participation Using Emerging Technologies in Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands

Annex B. Glimpse of the cross-national ecosystem at the European level

While the project is anchored in Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands, networks for innovation in citizen participation extend across borders. Exploratory desk research was combined with an online workshop that engaged key actors working on citizen participation at the level of the European Union to start making sense of cross-border dynamics.

Organisations with international reach such as International Observatory on Participatory Democracy (IOPD), the Open Government Partnership and the JRC’s Competence Centre on Participatory and Deliberative Democracy provide platforms for cross-border knowledge sharing and capacity building on citizen participation. International projects stimulate innovation and experimentation in citizen participation. For example, PHOENIX, a project funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 to test context-specific participatory methodologies for green transitions, convenes a multidisciplinary group of 15 partners, including Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra, Oficina and Onesource in Portugal, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), and University College Groningen in the Netherlands.

From the sources above, Table A B.1 summarises the main factors affecting the development and use of technology for participation at the European level and their impact on this cross-national ecosystem of actors.

Table A B.1. Factors identified by cross-border workshop participants

Factors	Impacts
Political will and openness from decision makers	Most participatory projects emerge from political will to set them up. Support from government is a huge enabler. However, engaging citizens implies, at least partially, delegating the choice to them, losing power; this is challenging to hierarchical, top-down policymaking processes.
Legislative requirements	A requirement and mandate to implement citizen participation (sometimes by regulation) has a profoundly positive impact on the demand for technology for citizen participation.
Successful examples	Demonstrating by example enhances demand for the use of technology in citizen participation.
Public sector capabilities	Public sector needs to build capacities to implement technological solutions.
Sustainability of citizen participation initiatives	Participation initiatives are often run as single shot, which means little opportunities for the supply to offer their services and improve them over iterations.
Funding and procurement	Running technologically enabled participatory projects is expensive and funding is often limited, leading to competition for resources. Public procurement contracts are often not adequate for cross-border collaborations, and they make it difficult for foreign actors to participate.
Digital infrastructure	High technical infrastructure and access in the EU minimises technical issues. However, many governments do not have the infrastructure to host participatory solutions.
Standards and interoperability	Tech standards make it easier to develop cross-border collaborations, simplifying alignment among the actors.
Professionalisation of the sector	Supply actors are more and more organised and institutionalised, making collaborations easier.
Competition for talent	Organisations developing technology for citizen participation cannot compete with big tech companies for talent in terms of salary.
Willingness to innovate	Testing and implementing novel tech for participation solutions is difficult because deliberative processes are often run with traditional methods and there is not always willingness to adopt novelties.
Democratic literacy among citizens	Citizens, especially young people, often lack a clear understanding of how democracy and participation work.
Digital literacy among citizens	Low digital skills, especially of older people, means low incentives to set up tech participatory projects.
Culture of participation	Polities with a tradition of citizen participation are more prone to exploring the adoption of tech to engage with citizens.

Source: OECD based on inputs from the virtual workshop (3 July 2024).