Lessons from monitoring and assessing EC-funded eParticipation projects: Citizen engagement and participation impact

Declining electoral turnout and diminishing citizen interest in democracy have resulted in considerable activity in terms of pan-European eParticipation preparedness over the last five years. The European Commission (EC) has co-financed 21 eParticipation pilot projects within the eParticipation Preparatory Action since 2006. To assess and co-ordinate this activity, the EC also initiated a support action, namely `MOMENTUM'. The support action was also tasked with determining if projects were successful in achieving their anticipated impact and whether the individual projects contributed to more enhanced European decision making. This paper reports on the findings of MOMENTUM and its project evaluation, synthesizing on programme performance as a component of the individually funded projects. A comparative analysis was conducted that leverages a systematic method for collecting, analyzing and using information for accurately and continuously monitoring and evaluating diverse eParticipation projects according to engagement methods they applied and their impact on citizen participation.