3.3 million for improving online participation platforms

Professor Davide Grossi of the University of Groningen (Faculty of Science and Engineering) has been awarded a Horizon Europe grant of 3.3 million euros to improve technology used in democratic processes. This involves open source software that can be used at multiple levels of government: from local to national and transnational. 

Grossi is collaborating in this research project with an international and interdisciplinary consortium of six academic partners and three societal partners. The three-year project will start January 1.

Developing new methods

More and more civil society organizations and governments are using online participation platforms to enhance the legitimacy of policy decisions. At the same time, there is a lack of evidence-based methods to design, assess and validate this technology. The consortium will develop these methods by analyzing and testing existing open-source software. Part of the project is to compile a library of best practices and recommendations for the design and implementation of online participation platforms.

Interdisciplinary approach

With their interdisciplinary approach, the consortium integrates methods and concepts from democratic theory, social science and computer science. Grossi underlines the importance of this: ‘Democracy is complex. It is what enables societies like ours, consisting of millions of individuals, to make collective decisions and govern themselves. There is no single academic discipline that can tame this complexity alone.'

Horizon Europe

Horizon Europe is the EU's main funding program for research and innovation. It tackles climate change, helps achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals and boosts EU competitiveness and growth. This project falls under the Global Challenges pillar, focusing on the major challenges facing the EU and the world. 

Davide Grossi works at the Bernoulli Institute for Mathematics, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence and the Rudolf Agricola School for Sustainable Development .