Lessons learnt from the on-line citizen engagement process of the Conference on the Future of Europe
The Conference on the Future of Europe was a large-scale participatory process designed to give EU citizens a more active and influential role in setting the EU Institutions’ priorities. The multilingual digital platform of the Conference had a key role in this process by allowing citizens that did not participate in the panels to contribute online and to engage in a multilingual debate across the EU.
This report looks at the potential of digital technologies in increasing the opportunities for citizens to participate in policymaking, highlighting several of the challenges faced during the implementation of the Conference’s digital platform, including the aspiration to attract a high number of participants; ensuring even participation across Member States and participants' demographics; the capacity to identify unique ideas submitted by the participants; and the capacity to remain relevant during the COVID-19 pandemics.
Key takeaways were:
- Integrating online digital platforms into a wider citizen engagement strategy is crucial from an inclusiveness point of view. However, how inclusive inclusiveness is, needs to be ascertained.
- While online platforms can offer new forms of participation, they work best in conjunction with in-person activities to ensure complementarity, continuity and follow-up. The online platform contributes to the extension of the participatory process to wider publics. Furthermore, the online platforms can serve as connectors of different citizen engagement processes.
- Multilingualism is essential when engaging with citizens from all over Europe (and beyond).
- Attention must be given to the transparency, accessibility, and inclusivity of online digital platforms. In addition, online spaces need to be safe, and be perceived as such by citizens, e.g., by holding accountable those that seek to undermine others or that promote violence and hatred through their contributions. Moderation is fundamental to promote fruitful debates.
- The participatory experience offered to citizens can significantly influence participation rates, with diverse interaction mechanisms, such as submitting proposals, commenting, and voting, helping to engage a diverse and extensive range of participants.
- Effective and robust analysis systems are key in online citizen engagement processes to infer the most salient contributions and/or clusters of contributions; to provide valuable insights into citizens' concerns and preferences; and to help policymakers identify agreement and disagreement on complex issues.
ROSA Paulo;
GUIMARAES PEREIRA Ângela;
2025-04-16
Publications Office of the European Union
JRC139951
978-92-68-26267-2 (online),
978-92-68-26268-9 (print),
1831-9424 (online),
1018-5593 (print),
EUR 40281,
EUR 40281 (print),
OP KJ-01-25-213-EN-N (online),
OP KJ-01-25-213-EN-C (print),
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC139951,
10.2760/1524483 (online),
10.2760/0212413 (print),
