crowdsourcing – European Citizens Crowdsourcing

EUCROWD project brochure

The brochure (available here in pdf) highlights the following main results and outputs of the EUCROWD project:

– EU citizens’ expectations on crowdsourcing in politics and policy-making with focus on debating the Future of Europe;

– Recommended issues and policy-cycle phases that could be crowdsourced at European level in relation to the Future of the EU;

– Open access on-line repository of 100+ resources on crowdsourcing as an e-participation method and as a means of fostering European citizenship;

– A list of crowdsourcing good cases and platforms that could be used for improving citizens engagement at the EU level;

The brochure also calls to action for individuals and organisations interested in e-participation of citizens in politics and policy with a focus on the application of crowdsourcing in fostering a democratic debate on the future of the European Union.

Towards a Crowdsourcing Pilot for EU Citizens: Recommendations

Based on seven conference type workshops organized for citizens, experts and government officials interesting in crowdsourcing in Ljubljana, London, Amsterdam, Athens, Paris, Helsinki and Riga, the following recommendations for the crowdsourcing pilot for EU citizens were created to support debate on the Future of Europe:

1. Recommended EU policy fields / topics that could be crowdsourced: Environment and Healthcare (e.g. air quality). Both are affecting daily life of EU citizens and are representing shared competences of the EU.

2. Recommended tools / platforms to be used: a single platform at the EU level which should be transparent and open-source, multilingual, include multiple ways of participation and contributions, scalable and user-friendly.

3. Recommended time frame / democratic policy cycle phases: “issue identification” by collecting ideas and “policy formulation” through solutions identified by citizens.

The document Towards a Crowdsourcing Pilot for EU Citizens: Recommendations from the EUCROWD Project (pdf) was presented and discussed with relevant EU decision-makers and interested stakeholders at the concluding EUCROWD conference in Brussels.

A list of citizens crowdsourcing cases and platforms relevant for the EU pilot

Several citizens crowdsourcing cases and platforms at the national level relevant for a crowdsourcing pilot at the EU level were identified, presented and discussed during EUCROWD events.

The list of 12 cases from 7 EU countries is available at http://www.inepa.si/eucrowd/results/#Cases.

The following shared expectations relating to the EU level pilot crowdsourcing platform were identified by citizens, experts and government officials during EUCROWD workshops:

engage citizens in crowdsorcing of policy areas affecting daily life;
be transparent about the process and use open standards;
policymakers must take into consideration citizens’ contributions;
enable deliberation and co-creation;
follow user-friendly design and web accessibility standards;
protect the privacy of its users and deal with security issues;
disseminate widely and provide multilingual communication.

Report from EUCROWD event in Brussels

The eight EUCROWD public event took place in Brussels on 27th February 2018. The concluding conference of the EUCROWD project “Crowdsourcing EU legislation: Taking decisions with citizens and not for them!” organized by European Citizen Action Service brought together 71 citizens from 20 different countries. The first part of the conference gave an overview of insightful national crowdsourcing practices from the project partners and conclusions from EUCROWD conferences in member states relevant for the EU decision-making process. The second part provided recommendations on the most suitable policies to be crowdsourced at EU level and relevant policy-cycle phases and democratic debate steps for piloting the EU level crowdsourcing on the future of Europe.

Continue reading “Report from EUCROWD event in Brussels”