Knowledge base
Clear, practical guides to community participation. Concepts, methods and international examples for anyone who wants to better understand or apply participatory solutions in practice.
A lot is said about citizen participation, but the concepts blur together. What is the difference between consultation and engagement? Why isn't a public forum enough? How do 60 people become a faithful, scaled-down mirror of the district?
These are the questions we answer — organised into series, so that the connections show through, not just the individual entries.
Series · 7 parts
The basics of participation
What does it mean to involve people in a decision — and what does it not mean?
Series · 5 parts
Methods in practice
How we draw lots, how we inform, how we moderate.
Series · 4 parts
International examples
Where has it already worked, and what did we learn from it?
Assembly reports
The documentation of our assemblies
We publish not only the theory but also the reports of our own assemblies — background material, recommendations, decision-maker responses.
Urban-development topics?
If your interest is not participation but urban development or experimental innovation, you'll find materials in the knowledge bases of our sister laboratories: LivingLab writes about the compact city and social innovation, while UrbanLab covers urban development and the economy.
Want to hear about new materials?
One email a month about our participatory projects, our assemblies and the new knowledge-base materials.