The European Commission’s Competence Centre on Participatory and Deliberative Democracy has published Impact of Citizen Engagement - Making a difference to policy, institutions and society. The report helpfully brings together analysis of the significant benefits citizen engagement can bring, from the traditional focus on improved policy making through to cultural change – within and beyond commissioning organisations. The report calls for a broader conception of impact, impact as a critical consideration in the design and delivery of engagement processes and the need to collate further evidence – all themes that KNOCA has been championing since its inception, not least through the development of our Impact Evaluation Framework. That the European Commission’s own Competence Centre is making the same arguments helps reinforce these important developments.
The Competence Centre report generates recommendations which again resonate with KNOCA’s guidance:
- Achieving impacts depends on assembling the right tools, resources and institutional capacities.
- Impacts should be the starting point, not an afterthought.
- Embed citizen engagement in democratic systems for lasting effects.
- Continued systematic data collection from participatory processes would deliver a stronger evidence base to inform policy and practice.
Download Impact of Citizen Engagement - Making a difference to policy, institutions and society.
