The chapter offers a systematic overview of the use of digital tools for various forms of political participation and the experiences made so far, based on an extensive literature review. Discerning three key functions of e-participation—monitoring, agenda-setting and input to decision-making—the authors review a variety of formally institutionalised mechanisms as well as informal expressions of civic engagement, including social media. The examination of digital tool use for monitoring purposes extends from electronic information access and exchange to e-deliberation, while the role for agenda-setting mainly includes uses for e-petitions and e-campaigning, showing a mixed picture of democratic impacts. The review of e-participation providing input for decision-making focusses on e-consultations, e-participative budgeting and e-voting, identifying several persisting problems with the latter instrument. A special section examines e-participation at EU-level, from deliberative citizens’ involvement projects and e-consultation to the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) and e-petitions to the European Parliament. Findings show that digital tools enhance direct and participative democracy in many respects; however, exaggerated expectations of new democratic potentials remain unfulfilled: deliberative participative designs lack any impact on decision-making, and the ECI still is rather an instrument for civil society mobilisation than citizen empowerment.

The production and use of engineered nanomaterials and nano-enabled products is increasing, enabling innovations in many application areas, e.g., in the sector of food contact materials. However, nanosafety-relevant information for chemical risk assessment is still scarce, leading to a high level of uncertainty and making the early integration of safety to the innovation process indispensable. This study analyzed the strengths, weaknesses, and applicability of the nano-specific Safe-by-Design (SbD) concept using nanoclay-containing polymer coffee capsules as a theoretical case study. In addition, a material flow analysis was conducted to identify exposure pathways and potential risks, and a multi-stakeholder approach was applied to discursively discuss challenges when attempting to combine safety and innovation at an early stage. The results indicate that the SbD concept is generally welcomed by all stakeholders, but there is a lack of clear rules on the transfer of information between the actors involved. Furthermore, a voluntary, practical application usually requires in-depth knowledge of nanotechnology and often additional financial efforts. Therefore, incentives need to be created, as there is currently no obvious added value from a company’s point of view. The SbD concept should be further developed, standardized, and integrated into existing legal frameworks to be implemented effectively.

In the current urban system, characterised by a one-directional flow of resources from the rural environment to the cities, the construction sector plays a critical role in supporting the transition from a linear to a circular economy. In this framework, temporary pop-up environments act as an innovative and sustainable type of living system. These are structures conceived as temporary from the outset, based on characteristics like flexible light-weight technologies, fast and easy assembly operations, temporary occupation of the ground and adaptability to different uses, needs and target groups. Great importance is placed on construction reversibility and environmental sustainability. In the framework of the interdisciplinary research project ‘Urban Pop-Up Housing Environments and Their Potential as Local Innovation Systems’, six scenarios of application for temporary pop-up environments for the city of Vienna have been developed, taking into consideration technical, urban and social aspects, on the basis of local uses and climatic conditions. In order to explore drivers and barriers of the scenarios regarding the transferability of the concepts, online questionnaire sessions were conducted with an international audience. The feedback obtained by the participants allowed an analysis of the applicability of the concepts to other urban environments under comparable conditions at the international level. The paper presents the results obtained from the questionnaire sessions, allowing insight on the international perception of temporary pop-up environments and, specifically, strengths and weaknesses of the scenarios, as well as their possible applicability in the local contexts of the respondents. It was observed that while the perceptions of what requirements temporary housing must fulfil in order to be sustainable are quite uniform among the experts, the identified barriers for implementation within the different international contexts differed greatly. The designs of these temporary housing scenarios, which rely heavily on local resources and systems, are strongly interwoven with the fabric and conditions of the city they were conceptualised for. While this serves to promote the sustainability of these solutions, it poses a particular challenge for the international transferability, requiring heavy adaptation for other contexts.

It is widely acknowledged that real-world experimentation is essential for the advancement of sustainable solutions. Urban contexts are perfectly suited for this form of innovation, since they have a high demand for solutions and also offer the necessary resources for the development of new ideas. However, there is a need for a well-defined basis for the selection process of suitable experimental designs for specific cases. This paper presents a typology of various existing sustainability experimental designs, focusing on the distinct features between different types and their respective strengths and weaknesses. Using the case of temporary housing models for Vienna, this paper provides a step-by-step selection process based on a catalogue of questions to match various types of housing projects with experimental designs. By improving the understanding of what the defining features of existing experimental approaches are, more clarity is provided for the design and planning of sociotechnical experiments for greater sustainability.

Korthagen et al. describe and analyse five digital democratic tools which serve or had served to support formal agenda setting at the national and local level (crowdsourcing for a constitution in Iceland, Future Melbourne Wiki, the Slovenian Predlagam.vladi.si, participatory budgeting in Berlin Lichtenberg and the Dutch internetconsultation.nl). The authors place a strong focus on the participatory process and practical experiences. For a better understanding of these tools and how they are used in practice, interviews were conducted with administrators and researchers familiar with the respective tools. Strengths and weaknesses are identified and possibilities for improvements explored. Most of the tools have had their impact on a political or policy agenda, although the extent of the impact differs and cannot always be quantified. This success is partly due to the embeddedness of most of the tools in formal policy or political processes. An important finding of this chapter is that although e-participation can have an impact on the political agenda setting, it does not always imply that there is an impact on the final decision-making process.

Rose et al. introduce four digital democratic tools which serve or have served to support formal agenda-setting on the European level (European Citizens’ Initiative, Futurium, Your Voice in Europe, and European Citizens’ Consultations). The authors place a strong focus on the participatory process and practical experiences. For a better understanding of these tools and how they are used in practice, interviews were conducted with administrators and researchers familiar with the respective tools. Strengths and weaknesses are identified and possibilities for improvements explored. While each tool shows positive results in different ways, their impact in terms of policy tools leaves much to be desired. Lessons learnt include the need to communicate clearly what input is desired from the participants and transparency about what outcomes can be expected and how the collected input is utilized. The tools must also be flexible enough to adapt to user feedback in order to provide for a learning process to take place.