WeGovNow is a three year research and innovation project focusing on civic participation in local government. It aims to change the relationship between citizens and local governments, transforming the citizen’s role from customer into partner. This is to be achieved with the development of an integrated community engagement platform, where citizens can interact with their governments and participate in local decision-making.
The platform will allow people to report local community problems and explore ways of solving them through collective action. It addresses the current limitations of e-participation by encouraging citizens to debate, develop and vote on concrete policy suggestions.
Our Role
With our expertise in participatory mapping and community engagement, Mapping for Change are involved in developing the interactive map component of the WeGovNow platform through a user centred design approach.
The project is funded by Horizon 2020, the European Framework Programme for Research and Innovation and it will include case studies in the London Borough of Southwark, City of Turin, and San Dona di Piave, Italy. In developing the platform, partners are collaborating with multiple stakeholders such as representatives from local authorities, public service providers, citizens and action groups as well as local enterprises.
Related Projects
Eco21.PL
Funded under the Swiss Block Grant, Mapping for Change in collaboration with the Centre for Training and Personal Development MERITUM, the Cultural Authority City of Gardens and Highways 4 Elements carried out a two year training programme in the Silesia region of Poland.
D-NOSES - Tackling Odour Pollution Across Europe
D-NOSES is a three-year EU funded research project which aims to provide a solution to the largely neglected issue of odour pollution, changing the traditional top-down approach for a bottom-up one. The lack of regulation from authorities around odour pollution is mainly due to it being difficult to reliably measure and the potential solutions being costly to implement.
Citizen Science Used to Map Community Air Quality
In 2009, Mapping for Change supported communities across London to measure and map local air quality. Use of a ‘citizen science’ approach meant local residents in seven locations were able to collect data, then see the real results of their monitoring activities, and subsequently embark on a campaign to see the serious results addressed.