Citizen engagement is a process. It is not limited to the time when participants are actually in the room together. There is much work before: all the decisions about the design and topic as well as preparations for the implementation. There is also much work afterwards: whether it’s monitoring the institutional response to the outcomes of the participatory process, the implementation of the results or follow-up with the participants. Moreover, citizen engagement processes are in principle open – the recommendations, visions or porotypes created by citizens acquire a life of their own as they start circulating among the wider society, organisations and institutions. The last part refers to the wider impacts of citizen engagement and can extend over months and years after the formal conclusion of a process.

This protocol will help you navigate this long and complex process by offering guidelines and reflection points for designing its various stages and aspect. As you go through the steps, keep in mind that they are interconnected – you cannot define one without thinking about the others. This means that during the design phase – and even while you are running the process – some of the decisions might need to be adjusted depending on how the project develops. Depending on a type of the process, as an organiser you might also want to develop some parts of it together with the participants.

As you go through the protocol – and in fact the whole Toolkit – it is important you keep in mind the distinction between a participatory 'process' and a participatory 'event'. The former refers to all the stages of engagement, from defining the topic to the follow-up. The latter refers to the specific moment(s) when citizens come together to discuss and co-create.

The illustration below shows the main stages of the design process. You find there the key objective of each stage as well as the core guiding questions. You can use it – initially – as a trigger to get you started thinking about all the relevant aspects that need to be considered. Towards the end of the design, you can treat it as a rough checklist to make sure you have covered all the main areas.

The above is just a general directory of the main considerations that play a role during the design phase of the process. For each of the questions there are many options with specific rationales that can orientate you in choosing what is right for your process. 

To continue exploring different aspects of the protocol follow the links below.