Project goals

The project of Participatory Budgeting as a tool for public engagement in the development of a local urban neighbourhood (2017-18) was a participatory action research conducted in collaboration between researchers, citizens, software company and cross-sectorial administration. The goals were (1) Enhancing community capacity with human resources and developing a resident-friendly online-based tool for citizen participation, (2) Delegating the decision-making power to the citizens in defining a part of the public resources, and (3) Involving citizens in the elaboration and ranking of the proposals. During the research the involvement of residents and participatory knowledge-building that recognizes the place-based local knowledge and expertise of residents in community development was highlighted.

In practice:

• A local grant (10.000 €) was focused to develop community activities and physical environment (max. 3000€/proposal)
• Open for everyone, but the implementation was limited to the area of Espoo Centre and the proposer had to take the responsibility of the implementation of the idea
• An online digital platform ”Mun Idea” for proposals (in February 2017) and for voting them (in May 2017)
• Two workshops (in April 2017) to cross-fertilize the proposals before the voting process (to improve the proposal and prepare an advertising text of it)
• All in all 30 proposals, 16 on final competition, and 4 winners received financing
• 316 voters, 719 votes