Students of the Career Minor partner up with the municipality of Groningen for an intriguing look into citizen participation

We are proud to announce that we have officially handed over our advisory report on citizen participation in municipal projects to councilor Mirjam Wijnja, after an exciting discussion in the city hall of Groningen. In our project, we worked alongside the City Management Department of the municipality of Groningen. The project was hosted as part of the Career Minor in collaboration with the Science Shop. This experience has allowed us to gain better insight into the complexity of citizen participation, the ways of working of various parties within the municipality, and the local community of Haren.

In our report, we paid special attention to enhancing citizen participation in small-scale municipal projects and decisions, especially related to the maintenance of public space. The main focus of the report has been to apply 'design thinking' (D.S.) to the case study of the replacement of a playground in Haren (Groningen, The Netherlands) and test whether it can serve as a methodology to improve participation in small-scale projects. In the end, the advice derived from the report was that D.S. can be recommended to the municipality as a methodology to improve participation processes. Other advice aimed at enhancing participation was the recommendation to use and improve the ‘Groninger Participatiewerkboek’ and the suggestion to hire an intermediary as a link between the Stadsdeelbeheerders, technical specialists, and residents.