Comments on: “Scratching where it doesn’t itch?” Time to talk about eParticipation and elephants https://pep-net.eu/blog/2011/07/28/scratching-where-it-doesnt-itch-time-to-talk-about-eparticipation-and-elephants/ The PEP-NET Blog Mon, 25 Mar 2013 23:34:33 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.0.1 By: On the road to Lórien - Poor start of Code For Europe in Barcelona https://pep-net.eu/blog/2011/07/28/scratching-where-it-doesnt-itch-time-to-talk-about-eparticipation-and-elephants/comment-page-1/#comment-37682 Sun, 27 Jan 2013 10:51:12 +0000 https://pep-net.eu/?p=4024#comment-37682 […] analysis of the developments and troubles of EU-funded eParticipation” was actually an urgent wake up call to the European Union, showing how the millons of euros they had invested for the promotion of […]

]]> By: PEP-NET » Blog Archive » eParticipation is finally getting teeth… https://pep-net.eu/blog/2011/07/28/scratching-where-it-doesnt-itch-time-to-talk-about-eparticipation-and-elephants/comment-page-1/#comment-36137 Tue, 22 May 2012 08:12:51 +0000 https://pep-net.eu/?p=4024#comment-36137 […] sci-fiction. But for sure, this kind of powerful, sustainable and social minded (e)Participation was rarely promoted by our Governments’ Innovation Support Actions. Instead of an impact oriented eParticipation research, put at the service of Civil Society, a […]

]]> By: Asociacion Ciudades Kyosei / Pedro Prieto-Martin https://pep-net.eu/blog/2011/07/28/scratching-where-it-doesnt-itch-time-to-talk-about-eparticipation-and-elephants/comment-page-1/#comment-35840 Tue, 20 Mar 2012 17:21:46 +0000 https://pep-net.eu/?p=4024#comment-35840 The paper got finally its way to publication. It has been included in the “European Journal of ePractice”, nº 15, a Special Issue on “Policy lessons from a decade of eGovernment, eHealth & eInclusion”.
The whole journal is available here:

https://www.epractice.eu/en/document/5344051

The version included in the journal is just slighly shorter than the one available from this post. If you want to cite this article, please use something like:

Prieto-Martín, P., de Marcos, L., & Martínez, J.J. (2012). The e-(R)evolution will not be funded. An interdisciplinary and critical analysis of the developments and troubles of EU-funded eParticipation. European Journal of ePractice, 15, 62-89.

Thanks to all that shared with us their interest in the paper! Let’s try together to learn from the past and finally get eParticipation right!

]]> By: Asociacion Ciudades Kyosei / Pedro Prieto-Martin https://pep-net.eu/blog/2011/07/28/scratching-where-it-doesnt-itch-time-to-talk-about-eparticipation-and-elephants/comment-page-1/#comment-35651 Thu, 03 Nov 2011 15:03:50 +0000 https://pep-net.eu/?p=4024#comment-35651 Tom Steinberg, founder of MySociety -one of the most successful organizations in the eParticipation landscape-, was keynote speaker at the Open Government Data Camp in Warsaw (PL), the 21st of October.
To our surprise, he used some of the analysis from our paper to “make a case for a radical overhaul of the way the EU tries and fails to support digital innovation for social and democratic purposes.”

His presentation can be watched at the Open Knowledge Foundation‘s Vimeo channel, at:

[OGDCamp2011] Tom Steinberg.

As a result of this talk, a very interesting conversation was started with Carl-Christian Buhr, responsible for “Research and innovation policy” in the cabinet of Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission that is in charge for the Digitan Agenda for Europe.

Which means that… our objective was reached! We hope that our reflections and analysis will help the EC in their attempts to continue improving their Innovation Support Programmes.

]]> By: Asociacion Ciudades Kyosei / Pedro Prieto-Martin https://pep-net.eu/blog/2011/07/28/scratching-where-it-doesnt-itch-time-to-talk-about-eparticipation-and-elephants/comment-page-1/#comment-35418 Tue, 06 Sep 2011 08:25:29 +0000 https://pep-net.eu/?p=4024#comment-35418 One additional related resource, which could be of your interests.
The Proceedings of the last CeDEM Conference on eDemocracy and Open Government, which took place in Krems last may, have been released and can be consulted HERE.

The paper Institutionalising eParticipation in Europe. Policy challenges and a way forward, from Francesco Molinari, also analyses the European eParticipatory Action to propose how to move forward.
Our analysis are significantly different -you could say they are “complementary”-, but it is interesting to note that Francesco also concludes that we need to pay much more atention to Sustainability Scalability and Instutionalization, move away from “one-off” small projects, and improve the “Monitoring and measuring” of all eParticipation endeavours.

This is the abstract of Francesco’s paper:

Institutionalisation of eParticipation is the next big challenge of the forthcoming years for Europe as a whole. After the wave of demonstration projects funded under the joint (EU Parliament and Commission) Preparatory Action on eParticipation, it is important to make one step forward by taking stock of the positive and getting rid of the negative outcomes, to avoid reinventing the wheel every time and to channel (presumably decreasing) resources towards future initiatives that really make a difference and have long term impact. To this end, it is recommended that the European Commission and Member States should focus more and more on technological (scaling-up) and institutional (sustainable change) aspects, particularly in the framework of the new eGovernment Action Plan‘s implementation process.

]]> By: Asociacion Ciudades Kyosei / Pedro Prieto-Martin https://pep-net.eu/blog/2011/07/28/scratching-where-it-doesnt-itch-time-to-talk-about-eparticipation-and-elephants/comment-page-1/#comment-35409 Wed, 31 Aug 2011 09:12:38 +0000 https://pep-net.eu/?p=4024#comment-35409 The Information Society Technologies Advisory Group (ISTAG) has issued its 10 key recommendation to the Commission on the orientation for EU ICT R&D and Innovation beyond 2013.
It’s interesting to note that some of their recommendations are quite aligned with the proposal’s of our paper.
For example, the recommendations:
2. Aim at global leadership in Social Innovation and create a ‘Balanced Progress’ framework
3. Enlarge the stakeholder community as new, non-conventional actors become increasingly important
7. Create open fast-track schemes for innovation detection, amplification, and acceleration
10. Embrace ambiguity and unpredictability and enable a dynamic agenda

The report can be downloaded at:
https://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/istag/documents/istag_key_recommendations_beyond_2013_full.pdf

]]> By: Nuestro artículo sobre la (e)Participación de la EU despierta reflexiones en PeP-NET (Asoc. Ciudades Kyosei) La participación ciudadana como puede ser https://pep-net.eu/blog/2011/07/28/scratching-where-it-doesnt-itch-time-to-talk-about-eparticipation-and-elephants/comment-page-1/#comment-35388 Mon, 22 Aug 2011 14:52:17 +0000 https://pep-net.eu/?p=4024#comment-35388 […] pasado 28 de julio pre-publicamos en la web de PeP-NET el artículo “The e-(R)evolution will not be funded. An interdisciplinary and critical analysis […]

]]> By: Asociacion Ciudades Kyosei / Pedro Prieto-Martin https://pep-net.eu/blog/2011/07/28/scratching-where-it-doesnt-itch-time-to-talk-about-eparticipation-and-elephants/comment-page-1/#comment-35368 Sun, 14 Aug 2011 11:07:08 +0000 https://pep-net.eu/?p=4024#comment-35368 Dear Reinder,
the case of petities.nl is certainly very interesting. It’s working in the Netherlands, and it would be quite easy to leverage it and extend its use to other countries in Europe with a minimal cost and risk. Why are these kind of projects not being supported? I think this is a legitimate question.
Regarding the “like” button… maybe you should think of integrating it. I’m not a fan of facebook, but I think one should not take design decission just based on what one likes or not. In this case, I think there is something that is more powerful than “e-mail” to spread a petition. And it is “e-mail…+facebook+twitter+etc” :-).
Avaaz, for example, has integrated very well all these tools… and my impression is that they are helping much to give visibility to their actions.

]]> By: ReindeR Rustema https://pep-net.eu/blog/2011/07/28/scratching-where-it-doesnt-itch-time-to-talk-about-eparticipation-and-elephants/comment-page-1/#comment-35362 Fri, 12 Aug 2011 20:43:47 +0000 https://pep-net.eu/?p=4024#comment-35362 When I write a chapter about my project petitions.nl for the “Sustainable eParticipation” book I would like to react to this paper. I think my project can confirm some of the arguments made in the paper more than it will contradict. Some examples. For starters, I got the first funding in 2004 by writing a few hundred words in a web-form. Written 20 minutes before the deadline! The project received several rounds of funding the years after. Peanuts compared to EU-funding. A dedicated eParticipation civil servant in the ministry would find some 10.000 here or there… I hooked up with the EuroPetition project although I did not receive anything for it (except for a few hundred euro for my travel expenses).

Scale of my project? I now count some 2,5 million confirmed e-mail addresses in the database for about 1000 petitions. Just national petitions in a country with 16 million inhabitants.

Social networks? Hardly. There is some twitter visible next to petitions but there are no Facebook buttons to ‘like’ a petition or send it to that parallel universe. E-mail is the most powerful way to spread a petition still.

Cooperation by (members of) the national parliament? Zero. Although a dozen of them signed a petition to get Neelie Kroes in her current position as EU commissioner…

I might respond later after reading more than just the summary.

]]> By: Asociacion Ciudades Kyosei / Pedro Prieto-Martin https://pep-net.eu/blog/2011/07/28/scratching-where-it-doesnt-itch-time-to-talk-about-eparticipation-and-elephants/comment-page-1/#comment-35357 Thu, 11 Aug 2011 09:13:34 +0000 https://pep-net.eu/?p=4024#comment-35357 Hi Rolf, I totally agree with what you say.

But I’d like to explain that the paper doesn’t really say that ‘projects SHOULD “attempt to take advantage of citizens’ interactions in the existing social networking services –like Facebook– to support the policy formulation processes, instead of inviting them to visit government websites’.

What the paper says is “Current projects pay indeed much more attention to scalability and attempt to take advantage of citizens’ interactions in the existing social networking services –like Facebook– to support the policy formulation processes, instead of inviting them to visit government websites.” It is thus referring to the common denominators of the new eParticipation projects financed by the EU, like Cockpit (https://www.cockpit-project.eu), WeGov (https://wegov-project.eu) and +Spaces (https://www.positivespaces.eu/).

My personal impression, aligned with your reflections, is that this approach is still “missing the point”.
That there is again too much “buzzwords and marketing” replacing research and innovation. But… maybe I am wrong: time will show us.

]]>