Citizens deliberated participation

How should the city involve the people of Göttingen in the future? This question was at the heart of the city’s second Future Forum, which ran from 17 August to 28 September 2024. A group of randomly selected residents drew up recommendations for the city administration and the city council.

Quality standards for public participation

The recommendations focused less on individual participation tools and more on quality standards for public participation at the local level as a whole. Particular emphasis was placed on:

• timely and transparent information about projects and opportunities for participation
• clear and transparent processes and more binding feedback on what happens to the outcomes of participation
• better and wider publicising of opportunities for participation
• the involvement of as diverse a range of population groups as possible
• inclusive and, where possible, low-threshold opportunities for participation
• further development of existing forms of participation, and
• clearer roles and responsibilities for politicians, the administration and the public

The Future Forum was deliberately not intended to be the end of the process. The citizens selected by lottery were first to articulate the public’s perspective; their proposals were then to be reviewed for feasibility in collaboration with politicians and the administration and translated into permanent rules.

Implementation

Since January 2025, a specially established “Participation Working Group” has been working to develop binding participation guidelines based on the recommendations. It consisted of three representatives each from the public, the administration and the council, in equal numbers. The three public representatives were members of the Future Forum and had been selected by it. This ensured that the randomly selected citizens remained directly involved in the further processing of their recommendations.

The working group assessed the proposals for their practical feasibility and developed principles and quality standards based on them. The plan was then to submit the draft guidelines to the political bodies and reach a formal decision on their adoption. However, the City Council has yet to give its final approval of these guidelines.

1,000 invitations to the Future Forum

A total of 1,000 people were invited to this mini-public in July 2024, whose names were randomly selected from the city's register of residents. From the people who responded, 36 people were randomly chosen to take part in the Future Forum.

During the application process, the gender and age of the applicants were queried in order to put together a balanced group according to these criteria. In addition, there are some criteria that exclude participation in the Future Forum:

• active functionaries of a political party
• Members of municipal advisory councils or the youth parliament
• Employees of the Göttingen city administration and its companies

Statute on future forums

A statute for the implementation of future forums in Göttingen, which came into force on 12 April 2024, regulates, among other details, that the criteria of age, gender, number of children, highest educational qualification, migration history and the presence of a disability can be taken into account when compiling such forums, so that the mini-publics are a reflection of the population.

The members of the Future Forum received an expense allowance of €20 per meeting, which is based on the municipal statutes on compensation for council members, local council members and volunteers.

‘Participate, have a say and help shape‛

Lord Mayor Petra Broistedt commented on the Future Forum: ‘The opinions and expertise of the people of Göttingen are important to us. After all, we make urban policy for people who live in our city. They should be able to participate, have their say and help shape it.’

The participants met on 17 August and on 7 and 28 September 2024 in the New Town Hall to discuss the topic of participation in Göttingen. According to the city, Göttingen residents already have many different opportunities to get actively and directly involved in planning processes and urban projects. In order to expand these opportunities and further strengthen the culture of participation in Göttingen, the Future Forum developed recommendations on how public participation in Göttingen can be even more successful in the future..

Cooperation between the urban community, administration and council factions

In addition to members of the Future Forum, staff from the Planning, Building Regulations and Surveying Department, the Urban Greenery, Environment and Infrastructure Department, and the Public Relations and Public Engagement Unit attended the working group meetings on behalf of the local authority. These three departments are particularly frequently involved in public engagement projects. On the political side, one representative from each of the three largest council groups (the Greens, the CDU and the SPD) was present.

The working group was led and moderated by employees of the Nexus Institute in Berlin, who previously moderated and supported the Future Forum. The working group met five times in the first half of 2025.

Precursors in other municipalities

Previously, mini-publics on citizen participation at municipal level had already been held in Brandis, Frankfurt/Main, Geislingen an der Steige, Weissach im Tal and Wolfsburg.

Two local authorities in Baden-Württemberg led the way. In 2012, a Citizens’ Jury on public participation in the local community took place in Weissach im Tal. In the same year, the members of a mini-public held in Geislingen were asked what they considered to be the key aspects of public participation in the town.

The city of Wolfsburg had invited randomly selected residents to a citizens' forum in 2013 to strengthen citizen participation. In Frankfurt, a democracy convention organised by the ‘Mehr als Wählen’ association in 2019 discussed the question of how civic participation can be improved in the city. In 2022, a youth council in Brandis, Saxony, focused on youth participation in the municipality.

Second Future Forum in Göttingen

The Göttingen Future Forum took place for the second time in 2024. At the first Future Forum, people from Göttingen drew up recommendations for the redesign of main roads, which are to be adopted as guidelines in the course of the conversion of Weender Landstraße and applied to other road construction projects. Following a positive evaluation of the first Future Forum in November 2023, the City Council decided to hold another Future Forum.