Introducing invitations: an easier way to get users onboard
What use is a participatory tool if those you want to collaborate with are not using it? We decided to make it easier for you to ask them to join in by launching the invitations feature. You now have several ways...
What Makes a Good Online Citizen Participation Tool?
As you may have understood by now if you are a regular reader of the CitizenLab blog, enhancing your citizen engagement processes by adding a digital component is crucial. It is the answer to most of your questions...
CitizenLab launches its civic engagement platform in France
We are glad to finally share the news with you: CitizenLab is launching in France! Two French cities have chosen CitizenLab to help them in their online citizen participation processes: Rueil-Malmaison and...
![How to Reach 25% of Your Population at the Platform Launch [case study]](https://www.citizenlab.co/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/large_image-1.jpeg)
How to Reach 25% of Your Population at the Platform Launch [case study]
Marche-en-Famenne, a small town with 17.401 inhabitants in the Belgian province of Luxembourg, did a fantastic job at launching its CitizenLab participation platform. In less than one-week time, their e-democracy...
Launch Successful Online Participation Initiatives with the CitizenLab E-Participation Canvas
Launching a successful participation initiative online is not something that you should leave up to chance. It is essential that, even before the start of the citizen consultation, all the stakeholders sit around...
CitizenLab platform enables South Africans to share ideas with their new President
In the run up to the State of the Nation Address, the new South African president launched GovChat, a nationwide initiative to boost citizen engagement. Via the online platform, powered by the Belgian startup...
Vancouver Chose Citizenlab for its Smart City Strategy
The cities of Vancouver and Surrey, in Canada, are partnering together to submit a joint application for the Infrastructure Canada Smart Cities Challenge, a nationwide competition encouraging cities to share their...
Product Update January: Maps, Timelines & More!
We have an exciting product update to share with you! January has been a busy month for us. Let us walk you through the newest platform features. Platform updates 1) Maps One of the new methods to collect input...
Our Year in (P)review: Towards Most Impactful Citizen Participation
As we are stepping into the new year, it’s time for the CitizenLab team to look back at the past year and set the pace for the next year. Read below about our citizen participation realisations in 2017, and our...
“Citizens have one expertise: the one of their needs” – Interview with Stephen Boucher
During the Interconnectés Forum 2017 in Lyon (France), we met up with Stephen Boucher, professor at the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management of the Université Libre de Bruxelles and author of the book...
3 Creative Ways the New CitizenLab Cities Are Using Their Platforms
In the last three months, the CitizenLab team accompanied more than ten cities and municipalities in launching their online participation platform. With each of these platforms, we saw different examples to collect...
Here’s Why Flemings and Walloons Agree on the Priorities for Brussels
At the beginning of 2017, the Cabinet Citoyen & Burgerkabinet initiatives were launched by the Flemish Region and the Federation Wallonia-Brussels with one idea in mind: get a better hold of what citizens...
7 Unmissable Talks at Smart City Expo World Congress 2017
This year the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona will be bigger than ever: more cities, more exhibitors, more speakers, and more inspiring talks by experts! The focus of this year is citizen empowerment,...
5 Indices & Frameworks to Evaluate E-participation
Source: Freepik Below, we are listing 5 metrics, tools, solutions and frameworks which are useful to measure how governments are performing when it comes to implementing e-participation initiatives. This article is...
CitizenLab, Winner Solution for the Smart State Germany
From Left to Right: Benedikt Lahme, door2door; Gerhard Hammerschmid, Hertie School professor and myGovernment jury member; Thomas Balbach, CitizenLab; Tino Mittelmeier, Little Bird; Laila Oudray, Polyas;...
Arlon is launching its CitizenLab citizen platform
The City of Arlon decided to make citizen participation one of the main pillars of its policy strategy. It is way to enable participative democracy and to develop new projects in full transparency. CitizenLab was...
![European Local Democracy Week 2017: Meeting the Democracy Builders [Videos]](https://www.citizenlab.co/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Capture-d’écran-2017-10-26-à-12.11.36.png)
European Local Democracy Week 2017: Meeting the Democracy Builders [Videos]
Earlier this October, the European Local Democracy Week took place, and we grabbed this opportunity to meet the ones who build local democracy: officials, civil servants, entrepreneurs, etc. Discover below what...
Discover What Made Mons Citizen Participation Platform so Successful
After 4 months of citizen consultation with the CitizenLab platform Demain Mons, the city of Mons (in Belgium) decides to carry on the experience. The Demain Mons platform takes place within the making of the 2025...
How to Implement Successful Online Citizen Participation: 5 Tips We Heard From the Citizens Themselves
At CitizenLab, we come to work every day because we want to shape digital citizen participation. As an unstoppable urbanisation is taking place and cities might become more important than nations, it’s time to...
The Framework That Will Make You Understand E-participation
In the past years, the communication between governments and citizens has evolved: from a one-way « government to you » perspective, to a two-way « government with you » perspective. This is the result of the...
6 Urban Projects Built Thanks to Online Civic Engagement
Citizens and administration often work hand in hand on a lot of different projects: culture, urban planning, budget or even the organisation of a city event. But which projects are most likely to foster...
How Liège Gathered 95k Votes on Its Civic Engagement Platform in Less than 4 Months
“We have been pioneers in citizen participation, but this time we really want to accelerate and change paradigm so as to hit a milestone.” – Jean-Christophe Peterkenne, Strategy Director of the City of Liège....
The Future of Europe: Our 3 Takeaways from the Eurocities Debate
Yesterday, I had the honor to share my ideas on the future of Europe during a Eurocities debate in the city hall of Ghent. The panel consisted of Daniël Termont (Mayor of Ghent and Eurocities president), Laia Ortiz...
3 Citizen Profiles You May Be Missing out If You Don’t Use Online Citizen Participation
As a policy-maker, you are aware that citizen participation is key to building inclusive municipalities. To collect the ideas of your fellow citizens, you know the drill: paper polls, town hall meetings, and even...
The Future of GovTech: Key Takeaways from Pioneers
Last week I had the privilege to represent CitizenLab at an exclusive gathering between some of Europe’s most influential decision-makers and a small group of GovTech startups who were handpicked by the...
CitizenLab discusses future of governments with EU’s Vice-President
This Thursday 1st of June 2017, CitizenLab will join an expert panel of Presidents, Ministers and forward thinking influencers in a discussion of how governments could improve transparency, implement crowdsourced...
3 Ways of Capturing Citizen Input
We learned from our customers that there is not a one-size-fits-all solution to capture citizen feedback. You want to make use of the mechanism that optimally serves the needs of your participatory design....
Civic Tech’s Next Breakthrough? Spatial Cocreation
Crowdsourcing platforms already are a great solution for environment planning, but they could revolutionise it altogether. Web platforms for local cocreation are an essential component of the ongoing democratic...
Why the Blockchain Could Transform the Face of Digital Democracy
Blockchain, the ground-breaking technology for decentralisation underlying the bitcoin, could play a prominent role towards stronger democracies in the digital age. Although wide-scale case studies...
How to Measure Success in Online Citizen Engagement
Engaging citizens in policy-making on the internet is a relatively new practice, but one that usually comes with massive expectations. But what exactly should be measured when we speak of true success in an online...
5 Tips for Opening Government Data
It seems we still live in the infancy of open government data, which is all about availability and quality. In this post we submit 5 more suggestions to usher in the mature age: open data as a prized participation...
The City of Liege Reinvents Itself with CitizenLab
The City of Liege has launched its city platform beginning of March! CitizenLab is helping the city reach out to its citizens to tackle the challenges of tomorrow in a digital way. Liege wants to co-create its...
King Awards CitizenLab as Belgium’s “Student Startup of the Year”
CitizenLab has been named Belgium’s ‘Student Startup of the Year’ in the presence of the Belgian King. Our team, of which the founders are young graduates, get honored for their impact on digital...
![Opening Government Data for Citizen Engagement [a Checklist]](https://www.citizenlab.co/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Open-Data-500x333.jpg)
Opening Government Data for Citizen Engagement [a Checklist]
It seems we still live in the infancy of open government data, which is all about availability and quality. In this post we submit 4 suggestions to usher in the mature age: open data as a prized citizen...
How can open data feed citizen engagement?
Open Belgium 2017 –the Belgian conference on open knowledge– is now only a few weeks away. One of its core themes is the leveraging of open data to increase citizen participation in public life and policy-making....
CitizenLab Receives European Union Funding
CitizenLab is now co-funded by the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Union. Our project received €50.000 in funds after being selected for the SME Instrument Phase 1 for start-up. Moreover, CitizenLab was...
