The CODE Europe project piloted a digital crowdsourcing process in six European countries on the subject of air quality. During the four crowdsourcing phases which ran from January 2022 till January 2023, a total of 98.224 European citizens participated on-line in Problem Mapping, Problem Solving, Ideas Selection and Policy Formulation. Based on the crowdsourced contributions of EU citizens, CODE Europe has developed and presented to policy-makers 10 proposals how to improve air quality in Europe.
Osebna izkaznica projekta s tehničnimi podatki in doseženimi rezultati v slovenskem jeziku (pdf)
Crowdsourcing process
45.888 European citizens took part in Phase One of the crowdsourcing, “Problem Mapping” which ran from January till March 2022. The citizens were asked to identify specific problems related to air quality that they encounter in their daily life.
44.719 European citizens participated in Phase Two, “Problem Solving” which ran from April to July 2022. The citizens were asked to propose solutions to the air quality problems they had mapped in Phase 1.
6.487 European citizens participated in Phase 3, “Ideas Selection” which ran from August till October 2022. The citizens were asked to register and identify digitally in order to evaluate and selected which of the solutions proposed in Phase 2 they support, in order to put forward to policy makers on the EU, national and local level the most popular ideas and priorities.
1.130 European citizens participated in Phase 4, “Policy Formulation” which ran from October 2022 till 15 January 2023. Citizens had to register and digitally identify themselves to take part in this phase, where they helped edit policy proposals on air quality developed on the basis of the previous three phases together with experts in the field guided by the European Environmental Bureau.
Citizens’ recommendations on air quality
Based on the crowdsourced contributions of EU citizens, CODE Europe has developed and presented to policy-makers 10 proposals how to improve air quality in Europe:
- More green space in cities
- Increased cycling and walking infrastructure and its quality
- Taxing big polluters
- Support renewable energy infrastructure
- Strengthen public transport network in non-urban areas
- Establish rules to get Zero Emission industries
- Enforce improved building insulation
- Electrifying bus fleets
- Establish a speed limit of 30 km/h in cities
- Support workshops and school programmes to increase awareness about air pollution and environmental protection.
E-Participation Assessment Framework
The partners, led by e-Governance Academy, developed a universally applicable methodology for assessment of e-participation experiences. The E-Participation Assessment Framework allows objective comparison of the impact of e-participation projects across time and geographical space ensuring systematic and impactful knowledge-sharing, exchange of good practices and capacity building. The framework includes a “check list” of success factors for e-participation initiatives. The Assessment Framework was applied to the project’s Crowdsourcing pilots in order to collect feedback, validate and improve the methodology.
Digital crowdsourcing for better air quality in Europe: Conference in Ljubljana
The hybrid conference Digital crowdsourcing for better air quality in Europe shared experiences and discussed practical aspects of using crowdsourcing method for citizen’s e-participation inpolicy-making for better air quality in Europe. Experts, activists and policy-makers in the field of on-line engagement and environmental policies came together to highlight current challenges and presented innovative approaches in co-creating European and national air quality policies in dialogue with the citizens.
The conference was held in English language and live streamed online via YouTube channel Studio12tv. 78 people watched the conference on-line and 24 attended in person. The video recording of the conference is available on https://youtu.be/umFiQKZfKU8.
Project “Co-Deciding Europe: Civic Tech for Good Governance and Active Citizenship!” (https://codecidingeurope.eu/) aimed to empower citizens to co-create policies with decision makers through Crowdsourcing.
This project benefited from a grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Regional Cooperation.
