Informal citizen participation

The guidelines were developed in partnership between the administration, politicians and citizens in order to pool previous experience with citizen participation in Jena. This creates a foundation for a lively culture of participation, which should ultimately be expressed in more (desire for) citizen participation. A common understanding was developed of what characterizes good citizen participation, what can be achieved with citizen participation and how decisions are made about when citizen participation is carried out. From this, nine principles were formulated (see downloads), which on the one hand serve to ensure quality and on the other hand form the basis for the evaluation of citizen participation processes.

In particular, the guidelines should help young people to participate actively, even if they do not yet have the right to vote or are only living in Jena temporarily as students. Their perspectives should not be overlooked when the future of Jena is being shaped.

Jena is one of around 40 cities in Germany that has taken on a pioneering role and established guidelines for civic participation. Citizen participation is not only seen as a requirement, but also as a key factor for the future viability of the city. If key decisions for the development of Jena are made transparently and citizens can see their ideas reflected in them, then identification with their city will also grow.

The guidelines will be evaluated in 2024 / 2025.

The following principles are part of our guidelines and describe what characterizes good citizen participation in Jena. They serve to ensure quality and are also a basis for the evaluation of citizen participation in Jena (see also under Downloads):

1. citizen participation is fundamentally open-ended.

Public participation can only succeed if it is guaranteed to be open-ended. At the beginning of every public participation process, information is provided about the scope for action and which decisions have already been made in advance. The object of participation must be clearly stated as well as the promise of participation, i.e. the assurance of how the views of citizens will be taken into account.

2. citizen participation, its results and the subsequent decisions are made transparent and comprehensible.

Transparency is a decisive criterion for good public participation. The individual participation steps are presented publicly and comprehensibly from the outset. Responsible handling of the results is demonstrated, among other things, by information on how the results of the participation are documented and evaluated and who decides which proposals are taken into account in the subsequent decision and which are not. Transparency and traceability are strengthened in particular when public reasons are given as to why proposals are not considered.

3. civic participation is freely accessible to all citizens.

Citizen participation offerings are freely accessible to all and do not take place behind closed doors. They should be accessible to any interested person. This can be achieved through a combination of different offerings and communication channels (on-site events, online offerings, etc.).

For methodological reasons, an exclusive invitation may be justified in individual cases (e.g. in order to reach a representative section of the population in addition to open events, see method kit in the annex to the guidelines).

Finally, attention should be paid to the barrier-free design of public participation in order to make it as easy as possible for people with disabilities to participate.

4. citizen participation should promote the diversity of perspectives.

All citizens are given the opportunity to help shape and participate in politics through civic participation, regardless of gender, social and cultural background, age, education, religion, income and nationality. Suitable participation methods are used to prevent discrimination.
Where appropriate, specific population groups are directly approached and addressed in order to incorporate their views (e.g. if they are directly affected by a plan).

5. citizens can participate anonymously wherever possible.

As long as the participation method allows it (e.g. in online dialogs), anonymous participation should be made possible in order to facilitate the free expression of opinions. Appropriate measures must be taken (e.g. online moderation) to prevent or make it more difficult to abuse anonymity. Personal data will only be collected in justified cases, whereby further processing and evaluation may only take place in anonymized form and with the consent of the participants.

6. value is placed on the participation of young people.

In accordance with the City Council resolution of 15.05.2014 on the implementation of the municipal strategy for the participation of children and young people in Jena (StR-Nr. 14/2426-BV), particular importance is attached to the involvement of children and young people in municipal decisions. In doing so, age-appropriate information and appropriate methods are to be used, for example to enable opinions to be formed in a protected environment. Precisely because children and young people do not yet have the right to vote due to their age and are therefore only able to participate in the democratic process to a limited extent, they must be given special consideration when shaping civic participation.

The youth parliament plays a key role and is the point of contact for civic participation that is planned with pupils in years 5 to 13. Student participation is to be promoted through the active involvement of representatives of the student self-administration and the student advisory board.

7. civic participation is publicized in good time.

Only those who are aware of public participation opportunities can participate. It is therefore important that public attention is drawn to them at an early stage. Texts should be formulated in a simple and generally understandable way. Both digital (online) and print materials (offline) should be used for publicity. The methods (e.g. newsletter, district newspaper, website, social media, posters, etc.) to be used for publicity should be specified as part of a participation concept.

8 Citizen participation is moderated by a neutral person.

An open culture of dialog, different opinions and equal exchange are important for successful citizen participation. If the city or city administration is represented in a participation process as a stakeholder with its own interests, care should be taken to ensure that a neutral person is chosen as moderator. This could, for example, be an external professional service provider or someone from another department of the administration who has been specially trained for this purpose.

9 Citizen participation needs resources.

For citizen participation to succeed, it requires openness of results, transparent decisions, free access, diversity of perspectives, anonymous participation, participation of young people, publicity and neutral moderation.

But that's not all - civic participation generates costs that require financial and human resources. For successful citizen participation, it is therefore essential to plan for and provide the necessary resources from the outset.

All municipal projects in which it is assumed that there is a major interest on the part of residents are documented by the administration as early as possible in a project list, which is publicly accessible on the Internet. The list of projects not only shows the projects for which informal public participation is planned by the administration (or the city's own companies), but also the projects for which informal public participation can also be initiated by citizens. Finally, the list also indicates for each project whether formal public participation is required by law.

The list of projects is updated regularly. If informal public participation is already planned for a project on the administration's project list, there is no need for citizens to suggest public participation for this project. When suggesting informal public participation, it is irrelevant whether formal participation is already prescribed for the municipal projects or not. In the former case, informal public participation can be carried out in addition to formal public participation (usually at an early stage). In the latter case, informal public participation can also take place without formal public participation.

The city administration's online participation platform has been available since 2020. There you will gradually find the participation projects offered online. You have to register once and can then submit proposals for the projects, discuss them or vote on the citizens' budget.

Have you noticed something broken or dangerous in Jena? You can let us know online by uploading a picture or description. It is also possible to indicate the exact location on a map.