‘That's exactly what we need’
The German city of Moers should establish guidelines for citizen participation and create an office for citizen participation. These are two of the most important recommendations of the Citizens' Jury ‘Shaping Participation Together’.
Further recommendations in the citizens' report of the Citizens' Jury deal with the following topics:
- Further developing the culture of participation in Moers
- Good communication on the topic of participation
- Implementation of a participatory budget
Deliberations over four days
The Citizens' Jury, consisting of 46 randomly selected participants, spent a total of 32 hours from 4 to 7 November 2025 discussing the future of citizen participation in Moers. They were supported in this by experts and administrative stuff of the city.
On 17 December 2025, the participants presented their citizen report to Mayor Julia Zupancic (CDU) at a democracy conference held by the city. The Moers City Council will shortly be discussing the results of the mini-public.
‘A sign of democracy in action’
In her speech at the launch of the Citizens' Jury on 4 November 2025, Mayor Zupancic emphasised the importance of the new format: ‘This is a sign of democracy in action in our city - of working together. That is exactly what we need.’ She thanked everyone involved for their commitment.
The participation offer stems from a motion by the ‘Initiative Bürger*innenrat Moers’ (Moers Citizens' Assembly Initiative), which was approved by the city council in October 2024.
Introduction of various participation structures
The Citizens' Jury members recommend the introduction of various participation structures within the Moers administration, which are intended to permanently secure and strengthen citizen participation in Moers. These include the development and introduction of guidelines for citizen participation and the creation of an office for citizen participation with participation officers.
The guidelines for citizen participation are intended to set a framework for public participation in Moers in the future. They should regulate when participation takes place, that it is carried out in a variety of ways and that it is communicated via various communication channels. This is to ensure that as many different residents of the city of Moers as possible are reached.
Office for Citizen Participation
An office for citizen participation with a participation officer will take on various tasks. On the one hand, it will coordinate and support the participation activities of the city of Moers and, on the other hand, serve as a contact point for citizens and the administration on questions of participation.
Possible tasks of the office include receiving and reviewing citizens' concerns, acting as an interface between the administration and citizens, supporting the administration in selecting suitable participation methods, and forwarding citizens' criticisms and requests to the relevant departments in the administration.
Dynamic Citizens' Jury
The mini-public also proposes the establishment of a ‘dynamic Citizens' Jury’. This should be adapted to the underlying issue at hand. In this Citizens' Jury, important information should be provided by experts or affected citizens.
In order to improve the quality of citizen participation in Moers, the participants of the Citizens' Jury believe that the local culture of participation needs to be further developed. In this context, transparent information on existing participation opportunities, distributed via various communication channels, is important. When a participation process is carried out, it must be ensured in advance that there is scope for decision-making.
Participation coaches
For the mini-publi, the basis for a better culture of participation is that citizens are motivated to have their say. One measure proposed by the participants for this purpose is the use of so-called participation coaches. These are volunteers who have already taken part in participation events and use their experience to encourage other citizens to get involved.
To this end, they specifically visit schools, clubs and other organisations to provide information about opportunities for participation in Moers and motivate their audience to get involved.
Establishing an interest group
In addition, one group proposes establishing an interest group or association to promote citizen participation in Moers from within the community. The association ‘Wir für Moers – Wir für uns’ (We for Moers – We for ourselves), which was founded by members of the Citizens' Jury aims to work in an impartial, inclusive and solution-oriented manner and to seek contact with existing initiatives in Moers. Its goals are to promote civic engagement in Moers, strengthen cohesion and actively contribute to making and keeping the city a lovable place.
As a concrete measure for greater transparency, the jury members recommend the introduction of a participation portal for the city of Moers. It should serve as a central point of contact for all information relating to participation issues in the city and also refer to specific participation processes in Moers that are posted on the online participation platform beteiligung.nrw.de.
In addition, it should include an overview of all ongoing and completed participation procedures and link to the relevant process information and results. In addition to the written information, the procedures should also be displayed on an interactive map of the city.
Participatory budgeting recommended
The mini-public members recommend the establishment of a participatory budget, which should contribute to strengthening democracy and demonstrate self-efficacy to the city's citizens. A fixed budget should be allocated for participatory budgeting in the city's budget, supplemented by donations. The participants propose two possible approaches for concrete implementation.
The first option is the citizens' budget, in which all residents of the city can submit project ideas. Through various voting procedures, which are to be digital and analogue, both children and young people as well as the entire population of Moers can vote on the ideas submitted.
The future budget, as a second option for the participatory budget, is based on the future budget of the city of Werder (Havel) and is similar to the citizens' budget in most respects. In contrast to the citizens' budget, only the children and young people of the city vote on the project ideas submitted. By limiting participation to the young population, the aim is to focus more strongly on the perspective of the future residents of Moers.
Citizens' Jury 2024 decided
The city council decided to hold the municipality's first Citizens' Jury on 4 December 2024. On 9 April 2025, the council determined the topic of the mini-public and formulated the question: How can new, innovative forms of citizen participation be developed locally in Moers that strengthen democracy, help people to better understand political decision-making processes and encourage them to become actively involved themselves?
The Mayor's Office and the Department for Democracy/Education Department jointly took the lead in the participation process.
Cooperations and steering group
To implement the Citizens' Jury, a cooperation agreement was entered into with the Institut für Demokratie- und Partizipationsforschung (Institute for Democracy and Participation Research - IDPF) at the University of Wuppertal, and the Nexus Institute was commissioned as an external agency to carry out the mini-public.
In addition, a steering group was convened, comprising stakeholders who were needed to prepare and run the Citizens' Jury. This included key areas of the administration and those responsible for the mini-public's target groups based on the selection criteria (age, gender, education, international family history, disability, homelessness). Other members included the Moers Citizens' Assembly Initiative, the IDPF and the Centre for Democracy.
1,500 invitations sent out
In September 2025, 1,500 randomly selected residents of the city were invited to participate in the Citizens' Jury. The selection criteria were a minimum age of 16 and an equal distribution of men and women. 135 of those invited applied to participate.
Those who responded were asked to provide further information on their age group, gender, highest level of education and migration background. Based on this information, a sample of 59 people was drawn from the total number of applications, representing as diverse a cross-section of the population as possible. Due to last-minute cancellations, 46 residents of Moers ultimately participated in the mini-public. All Citizens' Jury members received an expense allowance of €100 for their participation.
The mini-public was funded with €94,800 by the federal programme ‘Demokratie leben!’ (Live Democracy!).
Further citizens' juries on citizen participation
Prior to the Citizens' Jury in Moers, mini-publics on citizen participation at the local level had already taken place in Arnsberg, Brandis, Frankfurt/Main, Göttingen and Wolfsburg.
In 2013, the city of Wolfsburg invited randomly selected residents to a citizens' forum on strengthening citizen participation. In Frankfurt/Main, a Democracy Convention organised by the association ‘Mehr als Wählen’ (More than Voting) discussed in 2019 how citizen participation in the Main metropolis could be improved. In 2022, a youth council in Brandis, Saxony, focused on youth participation in the city.
In Göttingen, the question posed in a Future Forum in 2024 was ‘How should the city involve the people of Göttingen in the future?’ In the same year, the Citizens' Jury ‘Living together - strengthening democracy’ took place in Arnsberg.