Digital democracy is currently navigating uncertain waters: while online debates create new spaces for participation, risks such as misinformation and echo chambers are simultaneously growing. Although many citizens today are already well-equipped with digital tools, many remain disillusioned. The reason: their digital contributions often lack a visible or traceable impact on political decisions.
The Toolkit for Impactful Participation
The newly released Digital Democracy Preference Toolkit addresses exactly this point. The central finding of the research is that technical availability alone is not enough for success. Successful digital tools must move beyond mere consultation and enable so-called “co-production models.” Co-production models describe an approach where citizen participation goes beyond purely symbolic questions and instead ensures that public input has a traceable and visible impact on real-world political decisions.
What Citizens and Administrations Want
The results of the INNOVADE surveys show a clear trend toward action-oriented functionalities:
- Both the public and administrations prioritize the reporting of local issues, such as damaged infrastructure.
- Voting on concrete proposals is preferred over purely abstract ideation.
- Digital tools are understood as an important supplement to personal, direct exchange in face-to-face formats.
DFKI's Contribution: AI Security and Governance
Within the INNOVADE consortium, DFKI's Design Research eXplorations department plays a key role in overseeing the development of the project’s digital democracy app, gathering goals and requirements from the state of the art, stakeholder needs, ethical and legal considerations as well as new technologies. The goal is to provide a GDPR-compliant, AI- supported app that enables secure public decision-making. This ensures that all citizens can participate equally, regardless of their socioeconomic background or digital literacy. The first pilots in participating municipalities will start in late 2026 and mid 2027.
The toolkit is now freely available on Zenodo: zenodo.org/records/18258934.