Participatory Decision-Making: Experimental Methods

This course is designed for anyone interested in making decision-making more inclusive, transparent, and citizen-driven. Whether you’re an urban professional, community leader, activist, or engaged citizen, you’ll gain practical tools and strategies to empower people, build engagement, and create fairer participatory processes.

Led by Eutropian experts - Lukács Hayes, Daniela Patti, Levente Polyák, and Giovanni Pagano - the course explores both theory and real-world applications of participatory democracy. It tackles key challenges like engaging marginalized groups, ensuring diverse citizen representation, and sharing decision-making power effectively.

You'll learn about practical participation methods such as sortition, which ensures fair representation through random selection, and co-design approaches that foster collaborative citizen decision-making. The course also covers targeted outreach strategies to include underrepresented voices in governance and planning.

Case studies from initiatives like the Vienna Youth Strategy, the UK Climate Assembly, and Brussels Mixed Parliamentary Committees illustrate successful ways to integrate citizens’ voices into policymaking.

Additionally, participants will gain access to the Toolbox of Experimental Participatory Methods, a resource designed to help individuals and organizations build inclusive, impactful citizen decision-making processes.

By combining expert insights with real-world examples, this course empowers everyone - from professionals to grassroots organizers - to drive positive change through meaningful citizen participation and engagement.