The deliverable 3.2, Delivery of the citizen participation playbook, was submitted by Colaborativa.eu in February 2020. Following, the executive summary of the deliverable:
“The Citizen Participation Playbook helps local authorities to enable local communities on how they could become a Positive Energy Block (PEB) and lead the transformation towards Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) and Cities.
Meaningful citizen engagement is a challenge in any city-making process led by public institutions, and a key element for the success of the +CityxChange CommunityxChange. For this reason, the +CityxChange Bold City Vision (BCV) identifies citizen engagement as one of the six main processes within the framework. The +CityxChange Citizen Participation Playbook is part of two key sub-processes within the BCV Framework involving new forms of deliberation and localization of the democratic process.
The Citizen Participation Playbook is not a mere catalogue of physical and online participatory tools, but a detailed roadmap of four distinctive citizen participatory processes to co-design PEBs and PED including phases, steps, stakeholders, outcomes and a catalogue of physical tools and a set of online tools:
- Process 1: Co-design of urban interventions. A co-creating process in which municipalities together with citizens, researchers, professionals and private stakeholders can plan and design physical interventions in cities.
- Process 2: Collaborative Legislation. Collaborative process in which all stakeholders can actively participate in preparing municipal legislation and action plans.
- Process 3: Participatory budgeting. A citizen participatory process in which the local community decides how to allocate part of a municipal budget.
- Process 4: Citizens Proposals. Enables direct and bottom-up citizen participation in which any individual and/or organization can submit an initiative to municipalities.
The Citizen Participation Playbook is supported by six best practices for effective citizen participation distilled after an analysis of other smart city projects, European Commission Initiatives and other organizations. These best practices are: (1) Define the community, (2) Clear purpose and front-loading, (3) Continuous engagement: capacity building and feedback, (4) open process, open-source and open data, (5) Co-design, co-create and co-produce, and (6) Privacy by design.
The catalogue of physical tools together with the set of online tools (+CityxChange Participatory platform) provides an integrated and synchronized approach to citizen participation capable of adapting to the notable diversity of the LHCs and FCs participating in +CityxChange.
The Catalog of Physical Tools consists of seven tools: (1) Narrative tools, (2) Co-design workshops, (3) Focus working groups, (4) Public Engagement Events, (5) Go and find citizens, (6) Mapping sessions and (7) Gamification. Each tool has different target groups, methodologies and requires different levels of participation from citizens. The description includes implementation guidelines and references to practical examples.
The +CityxChange Participatory platform consists of seven online tools: (1) Collaborative Text, (2) Online Debate, (3) Online Mapping, (4) Online Voting, (5) Accountability, (6) Online Proposals and (7) Participatory Budgeting. The description of each of these tools includes a list of recommended software applications distilled from the analysis of more than 35 applications.
The Playbook has been developed by firstly analysing previous experiences on citizen participation shared by smart city projects, EU initiatives and other European organizations (NGOs, municipalities and experts), and then combining insights of LHCs and FCs on citizen participation through collaborative sessions, questionnaires and interviews. This work allowed comparative analysis on citizen participation between all the different municipalities and formed a solid foundation for the development of this Playbook.
D3.2 +CityxChange Citizen Participation Playbook is part of the +CityxChange portfolio of community co-creation measures defined by +CityxChange Framework for Bold City Vision Guidelines, and Incentive Schemes developed in WP3 to promote the development of PEBs and PEDs: D3.3 Framework for an Innovation Playgrounds; D3.4 Framework for DPEB learning and education; D3.5 Framework for a Positive Energy Champion Network and D3.6 Framework for DPEB Innovation labs Framework.”