CROWD_USG produced an analysis of digital-supported social innovation processes fostering participatory governance of urban sustainability by state-of-the-art review and concept mapping intended as background for the subsequent research. The project investigated the potential effects of the digital turn on participatory governance; and explored how different combinations of key-drivers identified by local informants (i.e. the increased provision of digital inclusion processes and the wide-spreading of a shared vision of the city development) are able to disclose potentialities, pitfalls and consequences of crowdsourcing urban sustainability governance. The scientific and grey literature review has been complemented with the design and performance of on-the-field data collection (including participant observation and in-deep interviews with gate-keepers and key-informants) and data-analytics processes in the city of Ghent, West Flanders. Results have been elaborated via a strategic qualitative scenario building analysis that offer a privileged standpoint and a situated perspective for an expert discussion on the currently un-resolved issues brought about by digital participation processes. These include the broadening and transformation of participation meaning and practices; the capability and possibility to govern digital social innovation and participation in a new public-private governance regime; the shift of power geometries and the empowerment mechanisms that can (or cannot) turn the hyperconnected city of futurist technology-optimist narrative into a City of People. Building upon the digital social participation narrative that describes crowdsourcing processes as short ways towards greater democratization of public decision-making, the research made evident trends and threats in the technology-optimistic imaginary of a hyperconnected society advanced by (part of) scholarly research and European Commission policy documents and projects. In contrast with a large part of existing research, CROWD_USG documented how at the urban scale the understanding of digital-supported participatory processes as able to bootstrap an open governance agenda are in fact rather problematic. Critical analysis and examples of crowdsourcing for public governance in some European cities makes evident that at local level, different imaginaries emerge from practical experiences. Two different local-based imaginaries have been described and labelled as the “receptive city” and the “do-it-yourself city”. These emerge in partial dissonance with the “hyperconnected city” imaginary prefigured by European Commission guidelines and partially supported by scientific literature. Therefore, the project discusses the distance between different imaginaries and between promises brought forth by the digital agenda for Europe and the experience of local practices.
By accessing scientific, government and practitioners’ relevant communities the research collected and interpreted a significant amount of dispersed and heterogeneous data and trained the researcher in new methodological competences (scenario building, social media and network mapping and bibliographic mapping). Scientific products (papers, book-editing, conference presentation, scientific projects elaboration) have been published, while lay communication events and materials (including videos, graphic products and outreaching presentations) have been finalized and widely circulated. A network of social actors (including administrations, civil society organizations, social entrepreneurs, digital innovators, scholars etc.) has been gathered and constantly updated about the project progresses, and this offered the occasion for establishing scientific and operational collaborations. All of the results have been extensively presented and discussed in scientific conferences, workshops, seminars and outreaching events in Europe.
