Ensuring Impact: New Guidelines for Effective Citizen Participation Published

Participatory and deliberative processes are increasingly used across Europe. While numerous recommendations already exist for conducting dialogue and deliberation phases, there has so far been a lack of practice-oriented guidance on two particularly crucial elements: the preparation (Set-up) and the Follow-up of participation processes - especially regarding their impact on political decision-making.

This is precisely where the new publication comes in, offering concrete guidance for professional, transparent, and politically actionable participation.

The new guidelines compile international practical experience and show how participation can be designed to truly generate impact. They support public institutions in:

• defining clear objectives,
• transparently establishing mandates and responsibilities,
• involving administrative structures early on,
• recruiting citizens in a diverse and fair manner,
• ensuring political processing of results,
• and tracking the long-term impact of a process while communicating it to participants and the wider public.

The publication includes 23 concrete recommendations for action, structured across three phases:

Set-up Phase: How to lay the groundwork for a successful process — from selecting the topic to designing governance structures and developing communication and participation strategies.

Engagement Phase: Quality standards for implementation, including professional facilitation, diverse learning formats, and access to balanced information.

Follow-up Phase: How to communicate results transparently, ensure political uptake, and accompany processes in the long term — an element that has often been underestimated until now.

The guidelines emphasise: Effective citizen participation does not begin with the conversation, but with embedding the process in political decision-making — and it does not end with the final meeting.

The publication was developed within the Network for Citizen Participation & Deliberation in Europe. The network, initiated by the Bertelsmann Stiftung and FIDE, brings together experts from public administrations and political institutions across Europe and advocates for high-quality, institutionally anchored participation. With the new guidelines, the Bertelsmann Stiftung supports public institutions in designing participation effectively — from the initial idea to political implementation. The aim is to ensure that citizen participation becomes not only dialogue-oriented, but also impactful, binding, and trust-building.