CitizenLab's Blog
  • Platform
  • Services
  • Resources
    • Blog
    • Guides
  • About
  • Contact
  • Schedule a demo
  • English
  • Home
  • >
  • 🏛️ Blog
  • >
  • 3 Key Learnings To Move Forward With Citizen Engagement & Co-Creation

3 Key Learnings To Move Forward With Citizen Engagement & Co-Creation

By Dries Van Ransbeeck Civic Engagement 12/01/2016
CitizenLab's Blog
  • Platform
  • Services
  • Resources
    • Blog
    • Guides
  • About
  • Contact
  • Schedule a demo
  • English
A new era of citizen engagement

We’re moving towards a new era. An era of smart cities with citizens actively involved in problem-solving, innovation and decision-making.

Smart cities are often depicted to be about digital technologies only, but they aren’t. The technologies are simply the enablers. Smart cities are about their daily users, their citizens.

Citizens have plenty of ideas on how to transform their city into a more sustainable and resilient environment. As the present collective intelligence in cities remains largely untapped, the opportunities to collectively tackle problems and foster urban innovation are huge.

In the last months I immersed myself in civic engagement and co-creation.

Citizen engagement refers to the practice of encouraging citizens to become involved in the community life and help shape the community’s future, whereas co-creation is a specific method on how to do so. It aims at bringing different city stakeholders together, with a set of offline and online initiatives, in order to jointly create a better city and future.

3 Key Messages

After talking to many experts, attending several events and reading a lot about these topics, I found out that there isn’t one magic formula or scalable model out there yet to crack the code of co-creation.

In order to keep moving into the right direction, I want to share my three main insights with you.

1. No success without commitment

No smart city without smart citizens. But no smart citizens without any commitment from the municipality either.

The co-creation process between a city government and its city stakeholders requires financial, human and time resources. As long as there is no commitment to achieve anything, there won’t be any success.

Citizens do want to engage, but need to see an outcome of their efforts. Or, at least, that it is taken into account in the decision-making process. Therefore, commitment forms the starting point for successful co-creation.

Bonus tip: As a city government, avoid making big promises towards citizens while ultimately doing nothing with their input. This results in a loss of credibility and has a negative impact on citizens’ engagement.

2. Online and offline means go hand-in-hand

Both online and offline initiatives are aimed at bringing civic engagement to the next level. With the emergence of smart cities, which involve the use of digital technologies, online means gain in importance. But this doesn’t imply that governments should put an end to their offline efforts.

Online and offline initiatives are not mutually exclusive; they reinforce each other.

Today’s citizen participation opportunities are mostly limited to old school forms, a vote every several years, in-person visits and town hall meetings.

This is where technology comes in. It can increase the interactivity with citizens and provide an easy and wide access to different citizen groups. It’s not necessarily about technology, but rather about how technology enables city governments to better serve their citizens and the way this results in more transparency, a more inclusive society and more engaged citizens.

Bonus tip: Every citizen group has its own reason to participate. A profound understanding of these motives is good to keep in mind, e.g. youngsters want to show their capabilities and the elderly want to share their expertise.

3. Trust, experiment and learn

Last but not least, how to move from a couple of success stories to co-creation as a common practice in cities all over the world?

Trust between the different city stakeholders involved in the process lies at the heart of co-creation.

And this is necessary since co-creation contains uncertainty of outcome, which implies more questions than answers at the start.

Besides that, it’s important to adopt an experimental mindset and learning attitude to find out what works and what doesn’t. Making mistakes and adjusting accordingly are inherent with innovation and moving forward.

Bonus tip: City governments, willing to start co-creating, don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Get inspired by the few success stories out there.


Thanks for reading!

  • These insights were gained by working on CitizenLab, a civic engagement platform for cities. For more information, please visit www.CitizenLab.co.
  • If you have any questions or comments on this post or anything else, you can contact me via driesvanransbeeck@gmail.com, Twitter or LinkedIn.
citizensourcingcivic engagementco-creation

You May Also Like

Civic Engagement 11/05/2022
Developing the Dominican Republic’s 2030 Digital Agenda through community engagement
Civic Engagement, Strategy & Budgeting 14/04/2022
Promoting sustainable development with community engagement
Digital equity and access to broadband
Civic Engagement 07/04/2022
Why is digital equity important in community engagement?
Civic Engagement 29/03/2022
GovTech trends with Amy Nguyen
Civic Engagement 28/03/2022
GovTech trends with Marisa Denker
Written By
Dries Van Ransbeeck

Curious mind. Crazy about marketing, crowd economy, entrepreneurship, social impact, diversity & learning. Polyglot. Long-distance cyclist. Wanderlust.

Solutions
  • All solutions
  • Strategy & Budgeting
  • Planning & Public Spaces
  • Environment & Sustainability
  • Mobility & Infrastructure
  • Neighborhoods & Community Development
Platform
  • Platform features
  • Services
  • Plans
  • Schedule a demo
Academy
  • Resources
  • Blog
Company
  • About
  • Jobs
  • Partners
Get in touch
  • +44 79 2676 4670
  • +1 530 270 3403
  • Contact form
Blog
Developing the Dominican Republic’s 2030 Digital Agenda through community engagement
Community engagement for environmental justice and sustainability
Promoting sustainable development with community engagement
© 2022 CitizenLab: Community Engagement Platform. All rights reserved.
By clicking “Accept”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts.
Cookie SettingsAccept
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
CookieDurationDescription
_ga2 yearsThe _ga cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookie stores information anonymously and assigns a randomly generated number to recognize unique visitors.
_gid1 dayInstalled by Google Analytics, _gid cookie stores information on how visitors use a website, while also creating an analytics report of the website's performance. Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-advertisement1 yearSet by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin, this cookie is used to record the user consent for the cookies in the "Advertisement" category .
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional11 monthsThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
CookieLawInfoConsent1 yearRecords the default button state of the corresponding category & the status of CCPA. It works only in coordination with the primary cookie.
geot_rocket_citysessionNo description available.
geot_rocket_countrysessionNo description available.
geot_rocket_statesessionNo description available.
PHPSESSIDsessionThis cookie is native to PHP applications. The cookie is used to store and identify a users' unique session ID for the purpose of managing user session on the website. The cookie is a session cookies and is deleted when all the browser windows are closed.
STYXKEY_geot_countrysessionNo description
viewed_cookie_policy11 monthsThe cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
CookieDurationDescription
bcookie2 yearsLinkedIn sets this cookie from LinkedIn share buttons and ad tags to recognize browser ID.
langsessionLinkedIn sets this cookie to remember a user's language setting.
lidc1 dayLinkedIn sets the lidc cookie to facilitate data center selection.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
CookieDurationDescription
_gat_gtag_UA_65562281_11 minuteSet by Google to distinguish users.
_gcl_au3 monthsProvided by Google Tag Manager to experiment advertisement efficiency of websites using their services.
CONSENT2 yearsYouTube sets this cookie via embedded youtube-videos and registers anonymous statistical data.
undefinedneverWistia sets this cookie to collect data on visitor interaction with the website's video-content, to make the website's video-content more relevant for the visitor.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
CookieDurationDescription
_fbp3 monthsThis cookie is set by Facebook to display advertisements when either on Facebook or on a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising, after visiting the website.
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE5 months 27 daysA cookie set by YouTube to measure bandwidth that determines whether the user gets the new or old player interface.
YSCsessionYSC cookie is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos on Youtube pages.
yt-remote-connected-devicesneverYouTube sets this cookie to store the video preferences of the user using embedded YouTube video.
yt-remote-device-idneverYouTube sets this cookie to store the video preferences of the user using embedded YouTube video.
yt.innertube::nextIdneverThis cookie, set by YouTube, registers a unique ID to store data on what videos from YouTube the user has seen.
yt.innertube::requestsneverThis cookie, set by YouTube, registers a unique ID to store data on what videos from YouTube the user has seen.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
CookieDurationDescription
intercom-id-p4lr69wg8 months 26 days 1 hourNo description
intercom-session-p4lr69wg7 daysNo description
loglevelneverNo description available.
trx_addons_is_retina1 yearThis cookie is used for checking if the user has a retina display.
wp-wpml_current_languagesessionNo description available.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
CookieDurationDescription
AMP_TOKEN1 hourThis cookie is set by Google Analytics and contains a token that can be used to retrieve a Client ID from AMP Client ID service. Other possible values indicate opt-out, inflight request or an error retrieving a Client ID from AMP Client ID service.
SAVE & ACCEPT
Powered by CookieYes Logo

Please share your location to continue.

Check our help guide for more info.

share your location