The project “Possibilities and Limits of Digital Participation Instruments for Public Participation in the Site Selection Process (DigiBeSt)” is dedicated to researching target group-specific participation options for the socially relevant search for a final repository site.
The Federal Office for Safety in Nuclear Waste Disposal (BASE), which commissioned the project is obliged by the Site Selection Act (StandAG) to involve the general public in the final repository siting issue. Against the background of digitalization and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the objective of the project is therefore to explore the possibilities and limitations of digital participation tools for public participation in the site selection process.
To our great pleasure, the project is being carried out in cooperation with the nexus Institute for Cooperation Management and Interdisciplinary Research from Berlin.
Concrete questions that the project addresses are:
- In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, are there opportunities for digitizing information and deliberation events formerly thought to be “impossible to digitize”?
- How can young people, who are considered an important target group for participation in the repository siting issue, be engaged in a way that is appropriate for the target group?
- Which media, tools and platforms are particularly well suited for participation?
- In what way must information on the process and participation opportunities be prepared, also in order to reach specific target groups?
In order to arrive at the most informative results possible, the research project includes a variety of analytical methods. These methods of analysis include a review of the current state of research on digital participation, an impact study of target-group-specific digital participation by young generations, and a transdisciplinary workshop with experts in digital participation. The results, from which recommendations for action for BASE will be derived, will be summarized in a final report.The project runs for 18 months (01.02.2022 – 31.07.2023).
Contact
Jun.-Prof. Dr. Tobias Escher
Board, Computer Science, Political Science, Sociology
Tobias Escher leads a junior research group funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, focused on the effects of citizen participation on quality and legitimacy of political decisions regarding the transformation towards sustainable mobility, in particular on the local level. Previously he has managed both the Düsseldorf Institute for Internet and Democracy (DIID) and the PhD programme on local level online participation (NRW Forschungskolleg) of Heinrich-Heine-University Duesseldorf. His research interests are the design and evaluation of participatory processes online and offline. His particular focus is the potential contribution of citizen participation for increasing the quality and legitimacy/acceptance of political decisions. He has also developed a course on the theory and practice of online participation, a result of which has been a platform allowing students to shape their course curricula.
Tobias Escher is a social scientist with a PhD in Information Science, Communication Studies and the Social Sciences from the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford. To asses the opportunities as well as the limitations of digital technologies he can also rely on his basic knowledge of Computer Science. Having previously worked and studied in Oxford, London, Leicester and Berlin, he joined Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf in 2011.
Projects
Contact
Dr. Katharina Gerl
Board, DIID-Team, Political Science
Katharina Gerl is a postdoctoral researcher at the Düsseldorf Institute for Internet and Democracy (DIID). In her PhD thesis she analyzed the effects of digitalization and mediatization on party organizations in Germany.
Her research focuses on the implications of digital technologies for political institutions, political communication and participation. She conducted several studies evaluating the usage of onlinebased tools by political organizations. At the DIID she is also in charge of the unit that focusses on the evaluation of online public participation and the development of evaluation criteria to measure and compare the input, output, outcome and impact of digital tools for public participation.
Projects
Contact
Dr. Anna Soßdorf
Alumni, Communication Studies
Dr. Anna Soßdorf joined the FZI Forschungszentrum Informatik Berlin in 2023 as a research associate in the Information Management & Analytics department and is part of the House of Participation team. Previously (2019-2022), she worked as a research associate at the Institute for Social Sciences and as a coordinator at the Düsseldorf Institute for Internet and Democracy (DIID) at HHU Düsseldorf in teaching and research. Since then, she has been an alumni of the DIID.
In 2015, she completed her PhD on the political participation of young people in communication studies at the University of Düsseldorf. Her research interests include (digital) participation, youth participation, digital literacy, citizen science, and science communication.
In addition, she has been active as a freelance trainer, consultant and researcher on digital and civic education, citizen science and science communication since 2015. Ms. Soßdorf is active in various Citizen Science networks and co-author of the recently published white paper Citizen Science Strategy 2030 for Germany.