Improving civic participation through emerging technologies

OBJECTIVES

This project is funded by the European Commission under the Technical Support Instrument (23PT04) and aims to support the Governments of Portugal, Netherlands, and Spain in enhancing civic participation using emerging technologies with the objective of:

Exploring the potential benefits and challenges of these technologies for innovative civic participation
Adopting civic participation methods to design, monitor, and assess innovative solutions to priority policy challenges identified during the project.

PARTNERSHIPS

Instituto Nacional de Administración Pública (INAP, Spain), Digicampus (Netherlands) and ARTE – Agência para a Reforma Tecnológica do Estado (LabX, Portugal – coordinator).

The implementation partners of this project are OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI) and Open Government, Civic Space, and Public Communication Unit.

APPROACH AND MAIN RESULTS

Throughout the 20-month project, various activities are planned to involve high-level decision-makers and gather concrete ideas from various actors to help optimise emerging technologies to increase levels of civic participation:

Phase | 0

Description: Formal kick-off of the project
Date: November 23, 2023
Link: https://labx.gov.pt/destaques-posts/melhoria-da-participacao-civica-atraves-das-tecnologias-emergentes/

Phase | 1

Description: Draft a report on the state-of-the-art of the use of emerging technologies for civic participation.
Date: December, 2024

Phase | 2

Description: Ecosystem mapping of relevant stakeholders across the quadruple helix (public, private, research, civil society) in the three countries of the project and on the international stage.
Date: June 18, 2024 (Workshops)
Link: https://www.facebook.com/labx.gov.pt/posts/pfbid0maYKu9s7JCTQoFFF51DQAJbApxQvNjLiLG2yqwtQgmDng7Vv418GnpwF59Z67uB7l
Publication: OECD (2025), How Innovation Ecosystems Foster Citizen Participation Using Emerging Technologies in Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands, OECD Public Governance Reviews, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/2cb37a30-en.

Phase | 3

Description: From the robust knowledge-base gathered from the previous phases, the project will organise a 2-day co-creation event in Portugal to engage with ecosystem stakeholders, including citizens. This bootcamp will bring together actors from the three countries and beyond to address the challenges identified as priorities through the project by work collaboratively to design and develop initial prototypes of solutions.
Date: February 26 & 27, 2025
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqBisojxi-o
Publication: OECD (2025), “Tackling civic participation challenges with emerging technologies: Beyond the hype”, OECD Public Governance Policy Papers, No. 72, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/ec2ca9a2-en.

Country	Challenges
Portugal	Challenge A: How might we use technology to engage and amplify diverse youth voices in decision-making?
Spain	Challenge B: How might we leverage tech to enable citizens to surface, discuss, and prioritise societal needs?
Netherlands	Challenge C: How can policymakers successfully assess vast volumes of qualitative unstructured textual data from public participation procedures, to produce relevant input for decision-making?
Spain	Challenge D: How might we lever emerging technologies for citizen engagement that accelerate the transition towards climate-neutral cities?
Netherlands	Challenge E: How might we explore emerging technologies to help young people overcome barriers in accessing the financial benefits they are entitled to?
Netherlands	Challenge F: How might we enhance digital participation tools like Polis to improve accessibility and reduce affective polarisation?

More information about the challenges is available in https://oecd-opsi.org/blog/call-for-co-creation-bootcamp/

Phase | 4

Description: Closure of the project with a publication of the project’s conclusions with recommendations for an action plan for each of the countries involved, but also on a broader level for the EU as a whole.
Data: June 2025