Goal: The workshop will present various good practices for informal participation through digital technologies at national level as well as the key factors behind their success. This will allow the generalisation of trends, which will help the development of civic led digital initiatives and the mobilisation of the general public. The main input is expected to be given by the participants themselves to share initiatives and projects that they have experienced in the field.

Background: Grass-roots citizen participation at national level targets national legislative and policy-execution process. The subject of those acts is either a particular social or economic group, or the society at large. A greater state openness, transparency, and accountability could ultimately improve the quality of policy-making due to the enhanced citizen scrutiny, in the best case – involvement. Compared with local initiatives, national projects can reach a wider audience and engage a bigger number of citizens. However, topics can possibly be further away from citizens’ everyday lives.

Questions raised: How can ICT’s help to stimulate democracy on the national level? What are the success factors for such projects? To what extent should public administrations be involved in the process? What should be the output of such processes? What are best practices in the field that can be applied in other constituencies? To what extent do the experiences differ from local level initiatives?