Citizen engagement: from promise to practice
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Chapter 1: Introduction2 Paragrafen
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Chapter 2: Start with the right questions5 Paragrafen
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Chapter 3: Designing the participation process6 Paragrafen
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Chapter 4: Making participation succeed6 Paragrafen
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Chapter 5: Understanding the impact of participation4 Paragrafen
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Chapter 6: Skills, capacity, policies and governance needed4 Paragrafen
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Chapter 7: Final thoughts1 Paragraaf
1.2. The Speak Up project
Before we start, a quick word on the project that got it all started: Speak Up.
The purpose of Speak Up
Speak Up wants to strengthen the connection between citizens and governments in the North Sea Region. The project responds to shared challenges such as declining trust in government, increasing polarisation, energy poverty, and the transition to greener and more circular societies. Its mission is to develop better ways for governments to engage with citizens, and for citizens to engage with governments. Speak Up does this by testing participation methods, building skills and capacity, and helping organisations make citizen engagement part of everyday governance.
Our mission is to develop better ways for governments to engage with citizens, and for citizens to engage with governments.
A powerful coalition
The Speak Up initiative is fueled by a powerful coalition of 13 partners across 7 countries. Get to know them all!
Municipality of Groningen
Welcome to Groningen: the youngest city in the Netherlands and the beating heart of the North. With over 238,000 residents and an average age of just 36.4 years, we are a dynamic hub where a bustling urban center meets 20 surrounding villages. Here, we built the future of energy, health, and digital innovation alongside world-class knowledge institutes, such as the University of Groningen.
We believe real progress happens in close collaboration with our inhabitants. Since 2014, our dedicated neighborhood teams and "district aldermen" have worked directly with our 7 areas and 14 districts – encompassing 106 neighborhoods! – to give locals a seat at the table. Through our 'Groningen Model' for neighborhood and village democracy and our digital platform, ‘The Voice of Groningen’, we are constantly experimenting to give our residents more control. This way, we’re making sure participation is hardwired into everything we do.
University of Groningen
At the University of Groningen, we are committed to one shared ambition: building a more sustainable future. Our contribution to the Speak Up project is led by our Social and Environmental Psychology lab groups – international expertise centers powered by over 50 PhDs and 25 senior researchers. Our focus is on the human element of change: from understanding social polarization and inclusion to evaluating how to make everyone feel heard in climate policy. We bridge the gap between academia and practice, empowering governments and citizens to collaborate and confront challenges together.
Province of Drenthe
Drenthe is a province in the northeast of the Netherlands, known for its peaceful landscapes, natural beauty and ancient ‘hunnebedden’. With a strong down-to-earth mentality, Drenthe embodies the spirit of naoberschap (neighborly spirit). Through the Speak Up project, we're bringing that same spirit to the provincial government.
How can citizens, politicians, and civil servants work together in a way that feels natural? We are experimenting with 'hybrid participation' – combining digital tools with street conversations and citizens’ assemblies. Our goal is simple: to bring provincial decision-making closer to people’s daily lives and make it easier for everyone to have a voice.
City of Mechelen
Mechelen is a lively city in Belgium where inclusion is more than a nice word on a policy slide. We want people to feel that the city belongs to them, especially when decisions affect their neighbourhood, street, river, or daily life.
In Speak Up, we work on two things. First, we try to make our participation approach more consistent: clearer language, shared methods, better support, and stronger internal learning. Second, we test this in practice through concrete projects, including the transformation of the Binnendijle river.
Our favorite kind of participation? The kind where residents, experts, civil servants, local organisations and nature all get a voice. Yes, even our river gets a seat at the table!
City of Roeselare
Meet Roeselare: a city in the heart of West Flanders, where 'doing' is just as important as 'talking.' Through Speak Up, we’re reimagining how our city listens. We know that real democracy doesn't just happen behind a desk—it happens on the sidewalk. That’s why we use our Dialogue-Maker: a dedicated bridge-builder who heads into our neighborhoods to catch the signals that usually go unheard. We also experiment with citizens’ assemblies and digital platforms, to make sure participation fits our residents’ life. We know not everyone wants to spend their Tuesday night around a flipchart and lukewarm coffee.
Hannah Arendt Institute
Hello! We are the Hannah Arendt Institute, rooted in the heart of Mechelen. As a knowledge partner in Speak Up, our role is to bridge the gap between academic insight and everyday practice. We specialize in the intersection of governance, democracy, and the evolving role of local municipalities.
We are particularly driven by the Collective Impact Model. This represents a shift in perspective: moving away from a government that dictates from the top down, toward one that acts as a strategic facilitator. In this role, the government focuses on connecting the right players and creating the necessary space for citizens, organizations, and institutions to take collective action.
Throughout the Speak Up project, we have had a front-row seat to the partners’ journeys. We’ve documented the honest reality of what works, what doesn't, and what it truly takes for 'participation' to become a lived reality. We have distilled these real-world lessons into this comprehensive e-learning module, designed to help you translate these insights into the unique context of your own community.
Bellidée
Based in Northern France, Bellidée connects social work with local community life. We run community centers and nurseries, but the heart of our work is simple: listening to people. We focus on their ideas, their worries, and what their daily lives are actually like.
Our centers are open to everyone. We don’t just ‘provide’ activities; we help neighbors start their own projects and take the lead in their own streets. Because our board is made up of local volunteers, we stay rooted in what the community truly needs.
In the Speak Up project, we reach out to the people who don’t usually show up to official government meetings. We believe democracy lives in small, everyday moments: over a cup of coffee, at the nursery gate, and through the friendships and trust that neighbors build together.
VIA University College
We are VIA University College in Aarhus, Denmark. As a knowledge partner in Speak Up, we bring research and reflection, along with a healthy number of questions to keep us all on our toes.
We study participation from two perspectives. On the government side, we look at how municipalities can better support 'co-production' with their residents. This means asking: do civil servants have the right skills, and are managers ready to share the lead? On the citizen side, we look at how people organize local networks, take ownership of their neighborhoods, and drive climate action.
In the Speak Up project, we work closely with Skive Municipality and their Climate Villages. We are tracking how citizen-led ideas turn into real local projects. Our goal is to figure out who needs to be at the table, what kind of support helps most, and – just as importantly – where things tend to get stuck along the way.
Skive Municipality
Hello from Skive Municipality! We are a land of wind-swept coastlines, open landscapes, and small villages with big ambitions. In this corner of northwest Denmark, the green transition is something we build together, village by village.
Through Speak Up, we are powering our Climate Villages. These are local communities that develop climate-friendly ideas for their own area. We use methods such as the 'Future Shop', where residents imagine what they want their village to become and turn those dreams into concrete actions. Our role as a municipality is to provide the spark, support the local energy, and help those green ideas grow legs. Ideally, sturdy ones.
International Youth Think Tank
Hi, we are the International Youth Think Tank, or IYTT. We are an international, non-political youth organisation, and our mission is clear: create democratic participation for youth and by youth.
In Speak Up, we bring young people into the heart of participation. Our Youth Fellows host democracy summer camps and take to the streets to spark raw conversations about power and agency. Afterwards, they discuss what they heard, develop proposals, and present them to local city leaders.
We believe young people are more than a 'target group' to be consulted. They are the organizers, the thinkers, and the changemakers. Plus, they have a knack for asking the uncomfortable questions that adults usually politely avoid. We consider that one of their many democratic superpowers.
City of Malmö
In Malmö, we’ve set a bold deadline to be climate-neutral. However, we also know that a green transition can feel like something 'the city' decided, rather than something the residents want.
In Speak Up, we didn't want another theoretical study. Instead, the city partnered with Klimatriksdagen, a Swedish climate NGO, to organise a citizens’ assembly with a very specific goal: to see if everyday people could help shape our climate policy in a way that actually works.
We brought a diverse group of Malmö residents together to learn about the science and debate the trade-offs. They handed us 6 recommendations and 26 concrete suggestions. Our promise was simple: we won't let your work gather dust in a drawer. We took those ideas directly to the decision-makers to see what we could start doing tomorrow.
City of Oldenburg
Hello from Oldenburg, a city in northern Germany where we believe the best ideas don’t always start in a meeting room. In fact, they usually start at a market stall or on a sunny public square.
We are so excited to be part of Speak Up because it helps us shorten the distance between City Hall and everyday life. We love acting as the 'matchmakers' between the experts inside the administration and the real experts of our city: the residents, shopkeepers, students, and parents who know these streets by heart.
For us, participation should be fun and easy to join! We’re always looking for creative ways to spark a conversation, like our famous beer mats in local bars. It’s such a simple way to say: 'We want to hear from you' in a place where you already feel at home. Our goal is to meet people exactly where they are, making sure everyone has a chance to help shape the future of the city we love.
Agder County Council
Hello from Agder, a region in southern Norway with a long tradition of involving people in political life. But even in places with strong civic traditions, participation cannot be taken for granted. Across Scandinavia, engagement is slowly changing, and fewer people are taking part in public processes. That is why we are working on new ways to involve citizens and stakeholders in decisions that shape the future of our region.
In Agder, we do this through #OurAgder, a governance model we launched in 2020. It helps us make co-creation a core part of regional decision-making, so that different voices are heard and can actively shape policy and action.
We are excited to be part of Speak Up because it allows us to learn with other European regions, share our own experience, and test new ways of making participation more meaningful.
Speak Up is funded by the European Union through the Interreg North Sea Programme. This support makes it possible for partners across seven countries to learn from each other and share what works.
