INDEU

Objectives

The project INDEU – Inclusive Digitalisation in the EU, aims to solicit citizen’s opinions and recommendations on an EU digital transformation policy that ‘leaves no one behind’. A transnational partnership of seven civil society organisations from both Eastern and Western European countries will seek public opinion in a bottom-up participatory process in six countries – Spain, Germany, Belgium, Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania – selected on the basis of their historical, economical and digital diversity.

Whilst several key pieces of legislation have moved forward within the EU (Digital Markets Act, Digital Services Act, revised Audiovisual Media Services Directive, Regulation on Markets in Crypto-Assets), the digital divide continues to affect specific groups and is exacerbated by the rapid digitalisation of European societies. The intersectional digital divide data indicates that there is much more to be done in order to bridge this social, economic and political gap.

To foster a better understanding of citizens’ perceptions of digital policies in Europe, INDEU will implement a one-year crowdsourcing process to gather the opinions of the “crowd” on the topic of digital transformation. Citizens will be called upon to identify issues they see in their daily lives around the lack of digital inclusiveness and propose concrete solutions to policy-makers to reduce the digital divide. The objective is to also raise awareness on digital transformation policies and ambitions at European, national and local level and to further enhance the community of stakeholders (CSOs, citizens, decision-makers, academics and media) encompassing digital and political innovation in the EU. The project will produce concrete recommendations to decision-makers at all levels on digital transformation policy with a specific emphasis on the inclusion of vulnerable groups.

The project consortium is led by ECAS and includes the following six partners:

• ODRAZ (Croatia)
• ProInfo (Bulgaria)
• Democracy International (Germany)
• Science For You – SciFY (Greece)
• Romanian Center for European Policies (Romania)
• Fundación Cibervoluntarios (Spain)

• Lead the project implementation by ensuring timeliness and quality of the project activities by each partner based on KPIs;
• Support the development of the crowdsourcing methodology and platform and provide training for partners;
• Implement the crowdsourcing on digital transformation in Brussels to gather citizens recommendations through the platform;
• Host a pre-launch event to kick off the crowdsourcing process and a final event in Brussels with local and national stakeholders;
• Organise the final workshop in Brussels with the EU decision-makers and stakeholders, advocating for consideration of citizens’ recommendations on digital transformation and inclusion of crowdsourcing as a citizen engagement method in the EU participatory toolbox.