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  • Major report | 22 May 2025

Harnessing innovation on online deliberation

Report from the Joint Research Centre that explores the challenges and lessons learnt from the online citizen engagement process of the Conference on the Future of Europe. The report looks at the potential of digital technologies in increasing the opportunities for citizens to participate in policymaking, highlighting several of the challenges faced during the implementation of the Conference’s digital platform.

Paulo ROSA Participatory Democracy

Key takeaways

  • Integrating online digital platforms into a wider citizen engagement strategy is crucial from an inclusiveness point of view. However, how inclusive inclusiveness is, needs to be ascertained.
  • While online platforms can offer new forms of participation, they work best in conjunction with in-person activities to ensure complementarity, continuity and follow-up. The online platform contributes to the extension of the participatory process to wider publics. Furthermore, the online platforms can serve as connectors of different citizen engagement processes.
  • Multilingualism is essential when engaging with citizens from all over Europe (and beyond).
  • Attention must be given to the transparency, accessibility, and inclusivity of online digital platforms. In addition, online spaces need to be safe, and be perceived as such by citizens, e.g., by holding accountable those that seek to undermine others or that promote violence and hatred through their contributions. Moderation is fundamental to promote fruitful debates.
  • The participatory experience offered to citizens can significantly influence participation rates, with diverse interaction mechanisms, such as submitting proposals, commenting, and voting, helping to engage a diverse and extensive range of participants.
  • Effective and robust analysis systems are key in online citizen engagement processes to infer the most salient contributions and/or clusters of contributions; to provide valuable insights into citizens' concerns and preferences; and to help policymakers identify agreement and disagreement on complex issues.