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The Competence Centre on Participatory and Deliberative Democracy aims to respond to the increasing demand from the European Commission, EU institutions and countries for capacity to support participatory and deliberative projects and policies at the EU level.
This web platform aims to support the activities of the Community of Practice by providing a space for sharing experiences and recommendations regarding different methodologies to engage citizens. Moreover, the web platform is itself a place of reflexivity on participatory methodologies and governance. It can also be used as a working space to design citizen participation in science and policy making.
6th Citizen Participation and Deliberative Democracy Festival
This year, the Festival will take as its reference point the European Democracy Shield (EDS) presented by the Commission on 12 November 2025. As far as citizen participation is concerned, the EDS builds on the 2020 European Democracy Action Plan and the 2023 Defence of Democracy Communication, which led to the adoption of a Commission Recommendation on Citizen Participation in Policymaking. As one of the priority areas of the EDS is ‘boosting societal resilience and citizen engagement’, the 6th edition of the Festival will be focusing on ongoing work on relevant citizen participation topics that support the Commission’s policy on citizen participation.
Impact of Citizen Engagement: Making a difference to policy, institutions and society
Citizen engagement processes can be transformative, especially for participating citizens. However, what impacts do they have on policymaking, democratic systems and the broader public? This study illustrates a number of indirect impact pathways, indicating that the full extent of the policy impact of citizen engagement may be underestimated.
Training for local, regional and national public administrations and future trainers
The training on citizen engagement for public administrations and future trainers is afoot. The training is free and open to public officials, civil servants and other government professionals working in local, regional and national public administrations, and to future trainers. Participants can choose among three levels of competence: basic; advanced; and train-the-trainer.
Addressing pollinators decline – a citizen engagement toolkit
Since 2019, the Competence Centre on Participatory and Deliberative Democracy has been working together with the Directorate-General for Environment to strengthen the engagement of citizens in addressing the decline of wild pollinating insects, one of the critical problems of the biodiversity crisis. The main outcome of this activity is the citizen engagement toolkit including materials and guidelines for anyone who wants to organise a participatory process on the topic of pollinators’ decline and biodiversity.
This work also supports the design and implementation of the Young Citizens Assembly on Pollinators.
