Citizen-driven social innovations
Implemented by Association for promotion of human rights and media freedoms Censorship Plus
With the support of the Europe for Citizens programme of the European Union
Co-financed by the Office for Cooperation with NGOs, Government of the Republic of Croatia
Citizen–driven social innovations
Impressum Editors
Mirna Karzen, Social Innovation Lab (SIL) Tony Karzen for the Social Innovation Lab (SIL)
Authors
Maja Novosel for the Social Innovation Lab (SIL) Mirna Karzen, Social Innovation Lab (SIL) Stella Kalac, Social Innovation Lab (SIL)
Publisher
Cenzura Plus
Design and print
ACT Printlab d.o.o., ÄŒakovec
Circulation 1000 pcs
Table of contents Preface
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1
Citizen participation in decision making – why does it matter?
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2
How to encourage citizens to participate in decision making? Real-life experiences to learn from
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2.1.
Keeping the citizens informed
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2.2.
Hearing from citizens
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2.3.
Crowdsourcing
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2.4.
Co-design/Co-production/Co-developing
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2.5.
Design thinking
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2.6.
Participatory budgeting
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2.7.
Open data
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Smart cities
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Placemaking
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To conclude...
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Preface Dear reader, The manual that you are now holding in your hands is the first in a series of publications related to social innovation. It is a relatively unknown and misunderstood concept that includes innovative strategies, products, concepts, ideas, processes, services, business models, tools, methodologies and policies or a combination of all these elements acting in response to socio-economic challenges. It is expected that readers will find this manual engaging and learn more about social innovation, related good practices and possible solutions. Social innovators are encouraged to contact us with ideas and examples, as well as suggestions on how to improve this manual, which will be updated from time to time as needed. You can write us at mirna.karzen@socinnovationlab.org or stella.kalac@socinnovationlab.org.
Happy reading! Social Innovation Lab team
1 Citizen participation in decision making – why does it matter?
Citizen participation is nowadays seen as critical to building trust in public institutions and as a strong tool for development and strengthening of democracy. It is perceived as an instrument for developing social cohesion in communities and implementing new solutions in provision of public services. It can produce partnerships between public, private and civil society sector in a community, leading to increasing the community’s problem-solving capacities. In this way it paves the road to long-term development and benefits for all community stakeholders involved. Citizen participation also contributes to major improvements in local government, including better decision-making process that takes different views in consideration, stronger partnerships with local community, which leads to better understanding of local government policies and finally, the trust necessary to implement those policies. It is important to be realistic about what citizen participation really can do, change and move in local communities and at the same time be aware of the risks it involves. All of this and more will be covered in the following lines. First, there is a need to bring some order into what seems to be a mess with the terminology.
Citizen participation, citizen engagement and public participation are terms used interchangeably when describing activities in which people organised in more or less formal groups take part in decision making processes and policy design.
This can occur on different levels: within local communities or on a wider, national or even international level. Therefore, two contexts of citizen participation can be identified: engagement in various structures and institutions of democracy, and engagement related to the community and other informal groups. Within the first context, citizen engagement is thought to strengthen the legitimacy and accountability of governments and other democratic institutions. Citizen participation in decision making and policy design is believed to contribute to more effective and efficient public services, as they will enjoy greater public support. In the context of community-related engagement activities, citizen participation is perceived to contribute to increased social capital within the community, as well as to bring positive impact on individuals in the community, increasing their capabilities, confidence and feeling of connection with the community. It is important to note that people take part in citizen engagement activities voluntarily. They will take on an active role when engaging in a certain collective action. The individuals involved in such activities will be strongly connected to a social mission, which will be the common purpose of their endeavor. Since this manual is about social innovations in citizen participation activities, attention should be paid to determining what is exactly meant by “social innovation“.
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Social innovations are new solutions (products, services, models, markets, processes etc.) that simultaneously meet a social need more effectively than existing solutions and lead to new or improved capabilities and relationships and better use of assets and resources. Social innovations are both good for society and enhance society’s capacity to act1. Another simple explanation of the concept of social innovation comes from Social Innovation Laboratory, a regional organisation working in the field of social innovation in the Western Balkans.
Social innovation includes new strategies, concepts, ideas, processes, products, services, business models, tools and methodologies, or a combination of these, with the aim to respond to an unmet social need or social problem2.
It is not always so simple to distinguish social innovation from other types of innovations, or other types of socially-responsible actions such as for exampe corporate social responsibility or even social entrepreneurship. In order to be able to differentiate initiatives, projects and/or actions as social innovation, here are provided a good set of a criteria for social innovation: • Meets social needs and demands • Contributes to efficient and effective use of resources (human, financial and others) • Increases citizens’ quality of life • Reduces inequalities • Contributes to changes in the relationship among different sectors • Shifts existing paradigm and praxis • Empowers citizens – individuals and communities to act as co-creators and solve their own problems Social innovations don’t have to be big inventions, but can be, and very often are rather small, innovative solutions, which help improve the quality of life, provide better access to information and services and enable conditions for better cooperation – from better access to health services and improved traffic solutions to creative e-learning educational programmes, innovative micro financing and crowdfunding initiatives to ICT citizen-driven innovations.
POSSIBILITIES ARE MANY! Davies, A and Simon, J, (2013). Engaging Citizens in Social Innovation: A short guide to the research for policy makers and practitioners. A deliverable of the project: “The theoretical, empirical and policy foundations for building social innovation in Europe” (TEPSIE) 2 Social Innovation Lab, http://socinnovationlab.org/ 1
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“Innovation is often given complex definitions. We prefer the simple one: ‘new ideas that work.’” – Geoff Mulgan3 How can these two positive aspects of social activity be combined? What are socially innovative forms of citizen engagement? How can citizens be engaged in socially innovative practices?
„Citizen engagement in social innovation refers to the many ways in which more diverse actors can be brought into the process of developing and then sustaining new solutions to social challenges – essentially how citizens can be involved in developing social innovations and in social projects which are innovative“4.
The concept of engaging citizens is seen as an integral part of developing social innovations. Citizen-driven innovation needs to be considered as an integral part of managing local community’s problems. Otherwise, periodic episodes of citizen participation activities won’t bring the adequate and lasting positive outcomes. Geoff Mulgan, Social Silicon Valleys: A Manifesto for Social Innovation, Young Foundation (Spring 2006). 4 Davies, A and Simon, J, (2013)
How are citizen engagement activities benefiting the development of social innovation? • Better understanding of social needs. In order to to develop solutions to certain societal problems and challenges, there is first a need to identify and understand social needs to be address. Very often, public policy makers who are supposed to create solutions don’t have the right information nor the understanding of citizens’ needs, as they themselves lack the personal experience with the issues being addressed. Citizens are the ones who know and understand exactly what their needs and experiences are, so their engagement will lead to development of solutions that will be able to tackle challenges the right way. • The source of innovative ideas. Citizens themselves are a major source of ideas, knowledge and skills necessary to develop innovations. They just need the right incentives to help them uncover the ideas that will work in practice. • Diverse perspectives. Engaging citizens brings different perspectives together, which helps to come up with new solutions to complex problems. A diverse group of citizens of different backgrounds, assembled around a tough problem will be able
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to approach the situation from different angles and find novel solutions that a group of public servants probably wouldn’t be able to develop among themselves only.
Yes, citizen engagement can also lead to negative outcomes. Participation is often seen as a neutral technique, rather than a part of political process.
• Legitimacy. Citizen participation can increase the legitimacy of decisions. If citizens are involved in the design, development and implementation of new innovative public services, the innovation is more likely to be considered legitimate and better accepted than if it had been developed without citizen involvement.
These are the risks of implementing citizen participation activities, which are often left unconsidered but can lead to negative outcomes, like disempowerment and lack of accountability and transparency:
• Complex problems. Many of today’s social challenges are complex problems that cannot be solved by top-down approach, but require participation from end-users. Those complex problems do not have a single solution and addressing them calls for behavior change. In order to achieve this, end-users, that is citizens need to be actively involved in the process of understanding all dimensions of complex societal problems and offering possible solutions, as they are the ones that need to change their behavior in order to see positive results.
• Co-option: When planning participatory activities, it is important to take into account existing power structures within the community. Where power asymmetries are deeply embedded, the risks are high that the process of citizen participation will be captured by local elites and used to pursue their interests rather than those of the local community. In this way, participatory processes can reinforce rather than weaken existing power relations.
It is naive to think this that citizen participation will always or can always lead to the expected outcomes, bringing greater social cohesion or sense of empowerment. The citizen participation activities should always be designed with a particular outcome in mind, otherwise they won’t bring expected benefits to actors involved.
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• Self-exclusion: It has already mentioned that people take part in participatory activities voluntarily. Not everyone wants to be involved in participatory processes. Some people might feel that they can’t or shouldn’t take part. Whether someone wants to take part in participatory activities depends on one’s perception of their place and role in the local community. Numerous studies point to the fact that participants in civic life tend to be dominated by those who are already well-resourced – people with higher socio-economic status, well educated, employed and affluent.
• Legitimacy: When processes are co-opted by elite groups, or where they are not representative of the local community there may be concerns about the legitimacy of the process. In such cases, participation will only be a form displayed, but no real partnership and dialogue will be achieved in the community. • Risks of disengagement: Poorly practiced forms of engagement increase the possibilities of long term disengagement. If citizen participation initiatives can strengthen democracy and give citizens the sense of empowerment, as it is often argued, then it is also possible that negative experiences of participation can lead people to disengage even further. Disengagement, disillusionment, frustration, cynicism and consultation fatigue are negative outcomes of poorly conceived and executed citizen engagement activities. Many local governments, especially in transition countries, are reluctant to or afraid of encouraging citizen participation. Behind this belief is the fear of policy makers that citizen engagement will put additional pressure on already tight local budgets, as they believe the citizens will automatically ask for more public services. Instead of growing these irrational fears, local government officials should rather ask themselves how would developing citizen participation contribute to the long-term local development.
The objectives of encouraging citizen participation should be the following: • Meeting citizens’ expectations. Better understanding of citizens’ expectations and needs, in order to provide better-fitting services to adequately meet those expectations and needs. For better informed public servants it will be easier to create an enabling environment for an open dialogue with the citizens. Discussing priorities in use of public budget in an open transparent way is a major improvement in the functioning of local government. • Ensuring citizens’ influence on the community’s future. Citizens should share the vision of the future of their community, which will only be achieved if they are actively involved in the process of shaping this future vision and develop a sense of ownership of this vision. In this way they will be more likely to perceive themselves as members of the community, as well as contribute to making it happen. • Developing mutual trust between citizens and the local government. Trust is built by first, providing relevant information to the citizens and giving them the opportunity to communicate their feedback on the information back to the local government. Moreover, lasting trust relationships will be developed by
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organizing joint activities where citizens will be able to engage in solving real community challenges. Through implementation of joint projects, local governments will receive stronger citizens’ support for planned activities and investments. So, think carefully before you decide to include citizens in certain decision-making processes. Too many engagement activities are undertaken without a clear answer to important questions regarding expectations from future outcomes.
Ask yourself the following: • What is the purpose of the engagement activity? What are we trying to get out of this activity? How do we define success? What are our key objectives and why is engagement critical to fulfilling these? • Who do we want to engage? What are the barriers to participation? How can people be incentivised to participate? What are the dynamics of the groups of citizens you want to work with? How likely are the risks of co-option? • Can we tolerate uncertainty of outcomes? • Who is best placed to deliver a project or approach? Who will be our partners with necessary skills, expertise and knowledge to facilitate the process of citizen participation?
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• Do we have the resources to make engagement effective? Are we able to invest the time and money needed over the medium to long term to really benefit from the planned activity or project? • Can we manage stakeholders’ expectations effectively?
2 How to encourage citizens to participate in decision making? Real-life experiences to learn from
In this part of the manual we present you with good practice examples that you could get an inspiration from and try to apply similar initiatives in your own community5. We start with more simple forms of citizen engagement that involve individuals contributing information or opinions on suggested government activities and moves on to models where citizens are actively involved as partners to local governments when generating solutions to community problems and challenges.
2.1.
The city of Rijeka offers local entrepreneurs free SMS info service. Interested entrepreneurs can register for SMS updates from the City Office for Entrepreneurship on financing and education opportunities arising, business fairs coming up, public tenders, changes in relevant legislation etc.
Keeping the citizens informed
One of the simplest methods of engaging citizens’ interest is keeping citizens informed. This can be done through setting up a web site of the municipality or city where all the important news regarding management of the territory will be published. The majority of cities and bigger municipalities in Croatia have their own web sites, where they publish official documents regarding budget, public procurement, spatial and urban planning and other. Through the website, citizens can sign up for receiving a newsletter, which is another simple but useful method to communicate information to interested public. Target groups of citizens can also be reached by SMS technologies. In this way citizens can be personally informed about events and activities taking place in the local community. For more good practice examples and case studies visit http://participedia.net/en.
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GET INSPIRED!
2.2.
Hearing from citizens
Other than just providing information to citizens, local authorities may want to hear from citizens. There are various tools that enable public servants hear citizens’ ideas, suggestions, recommendations, concerns or critique. Citizen surveys and focus groups are tools used to get information on their level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with certain aspect of local community life. Public hearings and neighborhood meetings are tools for assembling interested groups of citizens in order to hear their voice on important topics concerning community’s devel-
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opment. E-consultations are a way to receive feedback from citizens using ICTs. These methods on city/municipality level in Croatia are used in situations when there is new legislation to be passed, most frequently in the domain of spatial/urban planning. European citizens’ initiative6 is a service that enables European citizens to invite the European Commission to propose legislation on matters where the Commission has the power to propose legislation. These fields include environment, agriculture, transport or public health. A citizens’ initiative has to be backed by at least one million EU citizens with their signatures, coming from at least 7 out of the 28 member states. Should an initiative fullfill all the formal requirements, the Commission will carefully examine it, but it is not obliged to propose legislation as a result of an initiative. ECI is a tool that can be used in the territory of the whole European Union, but its practical application hasn’t been very successful so far, due to many constraints and complicated procedures.
6 http://ec.europa.eu/citizens-initiative/ public/basic-facts
More recently, cities and municipalities opt for presence in the social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, where they can provide information in real-time and in a slightly less formal surrounding. Compared to regular web sites, social media platforms enable two-way communication in real-time. This means citizens will have the opportunity to respond quickly, so there should be an expert community manager hired for representing local authorities in the social media. Official Facebook page of the City of Zagreb usually follows the mayor in his daily meetings and events he formally attends. This is an example of how not to communicate in social media. There are much greater opportunities that social media offers to local authorities in communication with their citizens – polls, discussions, debates, asking for opinion and acknowledging feedback.
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Recent developments in social innovation practice are primarily marked with the use of new technologies. New ICTs have improved ways of interaction between citizens and policy makers, enabling new platforms for public consultation. What is also an evident trend, is the opening up of available public data to wider public in order to improve local government accountability and get ideas from the citizens in form of new or improved public services. Still, technology-enabled citizen participation in its full scale is only present in communities with higher socio-economic standard and well-educated population with long democratic tradition and clear vision of their role in the local community. Moreover, there is an evident trend toward new forms and greater role of citizen engagement in design and delivery of public services. Focus is now on citizen-centered and citizen-driven innovation leading to co-production and creation of tailored personalised public services. There is also a rising number of social innovations dealing with prevention – trying to tackle the underlying causes of social problems rather than their symptoms or effects.
2.3.
GET INSPIRED! I Paid a Bribe, India ipaidabribe.com7 is an initiative aiming to tackle the wide-spread problem of corruption in India. Citizens are invited to report on the nature, number, pattern, types, location, frequency and values of actual corrupt acts they have witnessed. Furthermore, citizens who resisted paying a bribe or met an honest officer who didn’t demand bribe are also invited to share their stories anonymously. What they wish to achieve with this platform is to map bribery India in order to improve governance systems and procedures, tighten law enforcement and regulation and reduce the scope for corruption in obtaining services from the government.
Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing is a term that describes a broad range of activities where the wider public (as opposed to experts) is involved in providing information. In the past years there has been a proliferation of online platforms that provide a simple, low-cost way for large groups of citizens to contribute data about their experiences. Platforms document a huge range of social and environmental issues, a in the following examples we will only present you with a few of them.
FixMyStreet, around the world FixMyStreet8 is a web platform originally developed in UK, but is now spread in countries all over the world, from Australia to South America. Citizens are invited to report local problems concerning public area maintenance, 7 8
http://ipaidabribe.com/#gsc.tab=0 http://fixmystreet.org/sites/
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such as lighting issues, gardens maintenance, abandoned vehicles or graffiti. Problems are reported in writing, or by submitting a photo, or both, and then forwarded to the respective municipality, based on the postcode or street address the user has entered. Croatian version of FixMyStreet, available only in a few municipalities for now, is called ZAKRPAJ.to9.
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https://www.zakrpaj.to/
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Budi odgovoran (Be responsible), Montenegro Budi odgovoran, od tebe zavisi, siva ekonomija 0%10 is a mobile app, web site and a phone line available to citizens of Montenegro. Apart from public area maintenance issues, citizens are encouraged to report irregularities concerning grey economy, illegal work, violation of consumer rights, irregularities on public beaches and other misuses of public property. Reports are made anonimously, and when an issue is solved, information about is also published so the effectiveness of the platform can be easily tracked. Money collected from fines charged for these acts is then used for financing community service projects, based on the contributors’ votes.
Wheelmap, Germany Wheelmap11 is an application built using OpenStreetMap that asks people to tag public places according to their wheelchair accessibility. Participants use a simple traffic light system (green for accessible, orange for partly accessible and red for inaccessible) to mark 10 11
http://www.budiodgovoran.me/ http://wheelmap.org/en/
up locations in a city. While helping people who use wheelchairs to plan their travel more efficiently, the site also makes transparent areas of poor accessibility and so can play an important part in highlighting this issue and applying pressure on city governments and private businesses to increase their efforts to enable equal access for everyone.
A very interesting project, co-funded by the EU, the Open Cities project12 is encouraging citizens of Berlin, Amsterdam and Paris to submit their ideas on how to make their cities smarter, more innovative and sustainable. Crowdsourcing challenge is set up in order to promote the use of crowdsourcing by city administrations, as a tool for citizen engagement in development of public services. This is the next topic in our manual. http://opencities.net/crowdsourcing_ challenge
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2.4.
Co-design/ Co-production/ Co-developing
One of the most significant social innovations in the public sector has been engaging citizens in the design and delivery of public services. This challenges the traditional model of public service provision, as it changes the roles of citizens, communities and the government.
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Co-design, often interchanged with terms co-production and co-developing, can be defined as “a creative approach that supports and facilitates the democratic involvement of people in addressing social challenges”. Co‐ production was prompted by a set of pressures, including growing citizens’ desire to be involved in public affairs, and awareness that new public service delivery models are needed as a response to increased expectations among citizens, emerging social challenges and their pressure on public budgets. One way of responding to the growing demand for public services is to consider citizens as partners and collaborators rather than only passive recipients. In this way, co‐production represents a model for public service reform. The first stage in using co-design approach is research, in order to understand and identify key issues and develop ideas in response to them. Participants then come together with service providers and other stakeholders with interest in the matter to develop solutions. They attend workshops that require specialist facilitation techniques and therefore co-design is often led by an intermediary agency that works with citizens and public authorities. There are a number of such intermediaries and design labs, which bring users and public officials together to work on improvement and re‐design of public services. An example of specialist intermediary is German Zebralog, and here is one of their success stories.
GET INSPIRED! Tempelhof airport, Berlin Zebralog helped citizens and city authorities of Berlin lead a constructive dialogue on how to valorise the huge portion of land of the Tempelhof airport, after its closed for air traffic in 200813. Zebralog organised an Online-Dialogue tool where citizens gave their ideas and suggestions what to do with this public space. After the public voting, suggestions that received the biggest support were presented to the responsible city officials who took them into consideration when deciding in a formal decision making process. The ex-airport grounds is now a recreational area of Berlin, while the ex-airport building serve for commercial and cultural purposes.
GET INSPIRED! MindLab is a Danish public sector innovation lab and an enabling platform for collaboration between sectors. It brings together citizens, business and government on national and local level to create new public services in a collaborative way. MindLab is a unique example of innovative management structure, as their owners are three Danish ministries and one municipality. The Citizens’ House14 is a project that MindLab is managing on behalf of Odense municipality. The house will provide an environment for meetings of municipal government officials and their citizens. It will accommodate everything from public services http://zebralog.de/projekte#stadt_dialog/ flughafen_tempelhof 14 http://mind-lab.dk/en/case/ borgereksperiment-paa-gaagaden-odense/ 13
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and culture to entrepreneurship and citizens’ meetings, benefiting both citizens and municipal employees alike.
For example, the Future City Game played in Estonian city of Saue emerged an idea to transform a neglected railway station into an info-station that would offer services like bike and skating hire, a café and an exhibition space for local artists.
GET INSPIRED!
GET INSPIRED! Future City Game, across Europe15 The Future City Game is an event that takes place over one or two days with the aim of generating ideas on how to improve quality of life in a city, or a specific area. Players are the citizens, ideally from diverse backgrounds, representing various professions, genders and generations. A trained ‘games master’ leads the exercise, giving players a set of tools to help them work together and develop ideas. Players compete in teams to design, test and present their ideas. At the end of the game, the ideas are presented to the local stakeholders, professionals, residents, and each other. Everyone involved votes on the best ideas and thinks about how they can be taken forward in the city once the game has ended.
Dealing with challenges of urban areas Brazilian city Curitiba is an excellent example of a social innovation developed by the city’s authorities that tackles issues of poverty and waste management at the same time, through citizen participation initiative. Curitiba’s public servants have been encouraging the citizens to take shared responsibility for solving their own problems. So, after conducting surveys to get information about their poorest citizens, the city developed a waste recycling initiative called „Garbage that is not garbage“16. The model brings multiple benefits for all citizens – the poorest ones get a job and a source of income, tax payer pay less because costs of waste collection are smaller in this way, and all citizens in general live in a cleaner and healthier environment.
http://en.creative-planning.eu/future-citygame.htm
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robertabrandes-gratz/curitiba_b_3713953.html
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2.5.
Design thinking
Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success17. Design thinking connects what is seen as desireable from a human perspective, together with what is technologically feasible and at the same time economically viable. Design thinking is a new approach to creating systematic solutions for complex social challenges, which puts the user’s needs in the centre of designer’s interest. The approach was first embraced by businesses, but is now widely used by non-profits and public sector18. The concept of design thinking is close to social innovation approach, since it includes creativity, prototyping and implementation so it is easy to implement it in the innovation process.
GET INSPIRED! Human-Centered Design Toolkit19 This toolkit was designed specifically for NGOs and social enterprises that work with impoverished communities in Africa, Asia, and Latin America by IDEO design company. The tool helps users, that is international staff and volunteers, in activities such as building skills, running workshops and implementing ideas. It has subsequently led to innovations that have enhanced the lives of people in these impoverished communities. http://www.ideo.com/about/ Brown, T. & Wyatt, J. Design Thinking for Social Innovation, Stanford Social Innovation Review (Winter 2010) 19 http://www.ideo.com/work/humancentered-design-toolkit/
2.6.
Participatory budgeting
Participatory budgeting directly involves citizens in making decisions about how public money should be spent. It means involving citizens in identifying spending priorities, making and voting on proposals about how to spend the budget, and then involving citizens in overseeing and evaluating how the money was spent. The practice emerged in the 1980s in Porto Alegre, Brazil and has since been adopted in many cities and regions around the world. Participatory budgeting is a tool which gives citizens significant influence and power in decision making. The intention is to make budgetary process more transparent, more public and more open. The process is believed to deepen democracy, build stronger communities, and make public budg-
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ets more effective. In the process of creation of participative budget, the relationship between the local government and the citizens changes in relation to traditional budgeting methods. It is a way to promote public learning and active citizenship, and also to achieve social justice through improved resource allocation. Through participatory budgeting practice, traditionally excluded political actors, such as low-income citizens and neighborhoods get empowered to take active part in building their future20.
GET INSPIRED! Participatory budgeting in Berlin, Germany21 In Berlin-Lichtenberg is, a borough of East Berlin 6% of the local budget is used for the participatory budgeting process. The process is based on the idea that all citizens have the right to vote on and submit proposals for new services. Citizens are invited to submit proposals on the following themes: libraries, health, children and youth, culture, music schools, public roads, volunteering, services for the elderly, sports, environment and nature and economic development. Citizens can submit proposals online via the participatory budgeting portal or at residents meetings, which are open to all residents and held across the borough. They then have the opportunity to discuss and reflect on these Wampler, B. (2000) A Guide to Participatory Budgeting Davies, A and Simon, J, (2013). Engaging Citizens in Social Innovation: A short guide to the research for policy makers and practitioners
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proposals at the residents meeting and online. The borough administration collects and reviews all proposals and amends them where appropriate to make them ready for voting. Citizens can then vote for their favorite proposals either online or at the residents meeting. There is even a ‘voting day’ where all voting takes place. Multi-Channel participatory budgeting in La Plata, Argentina22 Participatory budgeting in La Plata is integral part of the budgeting process of the city, initiated by the local authorities in 2008. The process combines face-to-face events with remote voting via mobile phones and SMS, showing outstanding results. In the first year 2,9% of the city’s population participated actively in the, while in the third year this number rose to 7,5% of the population. The process itself consists of three phases. The first phase includes faceto-face deliberative meetings held across the city. In the second phase, options previously selected in those meetings are put to vote, and citizens vote by using SMS technologies. The third phase brings the execution of projects selected by the citizens, as well as citizens’ monitoring of the whole execution process. http://participedia.net/en/cases/la-platamulti-channel-participatory-budgeting
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GET INSPIRED! PAZI(N), PRORAÄŒUN!23 is a Croatian good practice example of transparent and participative approach to defining public budget on city level. Citizens are first informed about funds flows into and out of the city budget. Then they have the possibility to give their suggestions through numerous public hearings and their neighborhood representative bodies. Citizens of Pazin get to contribute with their ideas on public area management issues and financing priorities in different sectors.
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http://proracun.pazin.hr/
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2.7.
Open data
The term open data refers to the initiatives where public sector information is made openly available for citizens and developers to create new innovative services. As this data is considered as the new kind of public good, new technical standards are being defined to facilitate the use and re-use of public data. Increased access to government data has led to proliferation of citizen-driven innovation solutions, which put this data in use. Opening up of public data has led to increased transparency and accountability in political processes, as information about government spending was made available to wider public. Similarly, opening up of data on public health and school systems has enabled citizens to be more informed about the public services they are using and to be able to make comparisons between institutions and facilities, all in order to be able to make a more informed decision. One of the most common methods used is the organisation of different events in cities and communities (so called „hackathons“), where citizens, developers, designers and others are given specific challenges to create solutions for the city or community in question. These events, that usually last for a day or a weekend, and bring together people with different backgrounds and skills, result in solutions in form of mobile or web applications that aim to improve civic life in the city or community24. The Young Foundation (2012) Social Innovation Practices and Trends. A deliverable of the project TEPSIE
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GET INSPIRED! PublicData.eu25 At the European level, public datasets are currently distributed across many different data catalogues, portals and websites in different languages and implemented using different technologies. PublicData.eu has been developed to provide a single point of access to open, freely reusable datasets from several national, regional and local public bodies across Europe. The European Commission demonstrated strong support for open data initiatives, opening up its documents and datasets from across hundreds of institutions. Public schools database in the Netherlands 10.000scholen.nl26 is a platform to allow easy comparison between schools in the Netherlands. It was started by two schools when they discovered that lots of information was not easily and publicly accessible. The platform re-uses data on education and schools from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. It compiles very detailed information on primary and secondary schools that receive money from the government including data on school quality, class sizes and composition, and teachers. 25 26
http://publicdata.eu/ http://10.000scholen.nl/
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3 Smart cities
A Smart City is a city seeking to address public issues via ICT-based solutions on the basis of a multi-stakeholder, municipally based partnership27. The Smart City model is based on the city-wide deployment of sophisticated technology infrastructures capable of sensing what is happening in a city in fine detail: where cars are parked, which hospital beds are empty, what the water quality in the river is, etc. ICT networks bring all that information together into an integrated overview of city processes and critical issues, while interactive control systems allow to intervene directly to fine-tune this city-as-machine, adapting it to specific needs and circumstances. A fully developed Smart City model tends to establish an integrated control of city systems (e.g. energy networks, transportation networks, waste management, air and water quality monitoring), which are linked with different departments of city administration. In the process of designing a Smart City, too often too much importance is given to technology, while the human factor remains neglected. This can lead to a system failure when the end users are not acting in the way the engineers predicted. So, the only way to start building a Smart City is to start with people, not the technologies28. This brings us back to the concept of co-creation and co-development. In close connection to Smart City concept is the Living Lab approach.
Living Labs are infrastructure for co-creative, human-centric and user-driven research, development and innovation. A Living Lab is a real-life test and experimentation environment where users and producers co-create innovations. Living Labs have been characterised by the European Commission as Public-Private-People Partnerships (PPPP) for user-driven open innovation. A Living Lab employs four main activities29: • Co-Creation: co-design by users and producers • Exploration: discovering emerging usages, behaviours and market opportunities • Experimentation: implementing live scenarios within communities of users • Evaluation: assessment of concepts, products and services according to socio-ergonomic, socio-cognitive and socio-economic criteria.
GET INSPIRED! Smart City Santander, Spain30 12.000 sensors have been deployed to monitor environmental parameters, parking space occupancy, traffic intensity, and parks and gardens irrigation. These sensors are all connected to a city monitoring and control network and allow the development of specific applications. http://www.openlivinglabs.eu/aboutus http://www.governing.com/topics/urban/govsantander-spain-smart-city.html
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The World Bank and the European Network of Living Labs (2015) Citizen-Driven Innovation, A guidebook for city mayors and public administrators, pg. 18 28 The World Bank and the European Network of Living Labs (2015) Citizen-Driven Innovation, A guidebook for city mayors and public administrators, pg. 26 27
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Barcelona, Spain Citilab Barcelona31 is a center for social and digital innovation. It is a mix between a training center, a research center and an incubator for business and social initiatives. This project started with the idea that digital technologies, specifically Internet, are a way of innovation much more focused on citizens.
Smart City Maribor32 The Smart City Maribor Initiative was launched to spark sustainable development of a smart city environment, to pursue innovation in the city of Maribor, and to develop pilot projects that will enable the provision of smart city activities in the field of smart services, technology and products. The initiative aims at implementing advanced projects that will improve the quality of life in Maribor, and encourage technological, social, and organizational innovation. In this way Maribor recognised the advantages of intensive collaboration between the municipality, research institutions, and industries to ensure high quality living standards and technological development. The formation of the Smart City Maribor Initiative is based on a “triple-helix� partnership, and represents a regional partnership between the Municipality of Maribor, the University of Maribor, other development institutions and the economy.
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http://www.smartcitymaribor.si/
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http://citilab.eu/en/citilab/what-is
4 Placemaking
There are technically speaking two different approaches to the public space development, a project-driven approach, which lacks citizens’ involvement (typical of planning in Croatia), and the community-based or a bottom-up approach, which is becoming more and more acceptable in local communities around the world. This approach starts with a dialogue with a community in the early, planning stage through workshops, forums, questionnaires and other means of communication. It allows citizens to express their concerns, offer their vision of the space and evaluate it together with experts. The result, often a compromise of all positions, can be a lively, creative space that offers more sustainable alternative and creates partnerships between professionals and community. Participation in the process, including objective setting and delivery and ensuring that the community has sufficient skills and resources to contribute constructively, may be an effective way of developing self-sustaining community structures and giving community real empowerment. It may also foster social cohesion and trust and contribute to better decision making in a variety of ways. Local people understand the problems and needs of their areas or group and may generate ideas for tackling these problems, which would not have been thought of otherwise. They may also have their ideas of priorities for expenditure so that maximum benefit is achieved.
“The design or redesign of public places requires a participatory process where the eventual users, or representatives of the same, are involved in the design process. Research –based recommendations cannot substitute for public participation”.33
What is Placemaking?
So called “placemaking” or a place evaluation, looks at the “ground floor” of a community, such as streets, parks, playgrounds, and other public spaces, fosters interaction between people and develops better, healthier and more livable communities.
How can Placemaking be done?
Through workshops with local community, using observation techniques, timelapse photography, citizen surveys, placemaking game etc. “People Places: Design Guidelines for Urban Open Space”, edited by Clare Cooper Marcus and Carolyn Francis, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1998, pg. 8
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GET INSPIRED!
GET INSPIRED!
Westergas plant, Amsterdam, The Netherlands34 After the Westergas plant closed, the property fell in ownership of the local district council. Due to successfully coordinated community activities the premises were converted into the new community park, historic buildings were preserved and the Westergas became an international cultural venue. The success lies in the fact that the local district council hired a project team and a leader who coordinated all of the activities, succeeded in mobilizing community as well as all other stakeholders. They were able to understand all of the stakeholders’ desires and achieve the right balance between the demand to design a traditional park with the ecological and cultural demands of the entire community.
Placemaking workshop in Pula, Croatia36 Community center Rojc is the center of civil sector activities in Pula. It is a home for 106 civil sector organisations and represents a quite successful example of fruitful cooperation between the city authorities and civil sector in Croatia.
The most important lesson that one can learn from this example is that “an open and inclusive process is the key to a successful redevelopment project. Having people who both understand the community’s needs, as well as take ownership of its many complexities to see the project through is crucial”35
Placemaking workshop had the aim to define the needs of Rojc center users and a common vision of the center’s future. Participants of the initial workshop came up with ideas including a common living room, hostel, caffeteria, urban garden, playground, outdoor sports zone and concluded that further discussions and surveys are needed in order to hear from Rojc users about their preferences. The initial ideas will be made into actual project proposals and discussed with the community stakeholders in various future workshops, as there are still many unresolved issues concerning property rights and legal agreements. Childrens’ vision of place, Rijeka, Croatia37 Pupils of Brajda primary school in Rijeka created their vision of Campetto school playground. Their drawings, representing their future vision of the playground, were the base for an actual architectural solution by a renowed architect. The idea won the second place in a local youth competition, including a money prize for the realization of the idea, but due to missunderstandings with the city administration it didn’t come to life. 36 37
http://www.westergasfabriek.nl/en/westergasfabriek-en/history 35 www.westergasfabriek.com 34
http://bit.ly/1IDQ1rN, pg. 8 http://www.rijeka.hr/Default.aspx?art=1116&sec=367
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5 To conclude...
You have now seen examples of how citizen participation in decision making processes can make life easier and better for all actors involved. This manual explained the term citizen participation or citizen engagement and the benefits it brings to local communities where such concepts are applied. The objectives, but also the risks of encouraging citizen participation activities are listed in order to help you think about what you want to achieve in your local community and how you could start. From newsletters and SMS infos to social media, from crowdsourcing to co-design, from design thinking to placemaking and participatory budgeting, from open data to smart cities – possibilities are many. It is the intent of this manual to bring you new and valuable insights into the topics of citizen participation and social innovation, and an idea how these two fields combined can contribute to social cohesion in local communities. It is strongly encouraged to try some of these activities in your local communities and be the driving force of change for the better and more harmonious future of your neighborhood and your city.
SOURCES
1. The Young Foundation (2012) Social Innovation Practices and Trends. A deliverable of the project: “The theoretical, empirical and policy foundations for building social innovation in Europe” (TEPSIE), European Commission – 7th Framework Programme, Brussels: European Commission, DG Research. 2. Davies, A and Simon, J, (2013). Engaging Citizens in Social Innovation: A short guide to the research for policy makers and practitioners. A deliverable of the project: “The theoretical, empirical and policy foundations for building social innovation in Europe” (TEPSIE), European Commission – 7th Framework Programme, Brussels: European Commission, DG Research. 3. Davies, A, Simon, J, Patrick, R and Norman, W. (2012) ‘Mapping citizen engagement in the process of social innovation’. A deliverable of the project: “The theoretical, empirical and policy foundations for building social innovation in Europe” (TEPSIE), European Commission – 7th Framework Programme, Brussels: European Commission, DG Research. 4. The World Bank and the European Network of Living Labs (2015) Citizen-Driven Innovation, A guidebook for city mayors and public administrators 5. USAID (2003) Citizen participation manual, Local government reform project
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