Bologna’s Citizen Collaboration Pacts

community assets; urban social innovation; co-creation; territory-making; participatory budget 

2014 – present

Co-design; Co-creation; Open Space Technology; Participatory Budget 

The case demonstrates the power of policy as social innovation, in this case,  of engaging citizens in the maintenance of the city and in its social, cultural and economic development. This was accomplished through policy tools like the Participatory Budget, that serve to activate policy (e.g. the Regulation on Common Goods) and through the establishment of Quarter labs that engage and activate citizenship in the city’s districts, while building capacity in the population and in the civil service. The process thus accelerates the network serendipity of the ecosystem and supports distributed agency in shared goals for the community. Through intense dialogue between city officials and citizens, policymakers are directed to take ownership of specific problems and commit to pushing along the agenda. The program naturally lends to diffusing social innovation and nudging behavioural changes through empowerment. While the case is not directly related to Climate-neutral Cities by 2030 EU Mission, it provides a powerful example of how the concerted effort of top-down (policy measures) and bottom-up measures (the collaboration pacts/participatory budgeting activities) can mobilise communities towards a common objective. Such tactics are directly useful for prompting system change in cities and ensuring a just transition toward climate neutrality. 

The Participatory Budget and the Collaboration Pacts in general are regulated under the Bologna Regulation for Public Collaboration on Urban Commons. It is a regulatory framework that serves as a reference for local authorities, citizens, grassroots organizations, associations and informal groups who would like to manage and care for urban commons through a collaborative process with clear guidelines and procedures. The Regulation in Bologna was the first to be passed but since it has been replicated in several other Italian cities as a pioneering and innovative approach to collaborative urban governance.  

There are several elements that mark this case of Social Innovation as exemplary for its innovative approach to urban regeneration that could be useful in similar approaches seeking to unite actors around a common vision and goal. The first is the participatory approach to policymaking that was at the core of the founding political program, centred around building a collaborative city.  

The unifying element can be seen in the use of participatory methods to engage and onboard stakeholders in the implementation of the vision. This approach was adopted at various moments, starting with six co-creation sessions to map funding priorities that guided the design of the Urban Innovation Plan. The Quarter Labs, established to support Quarters after their re-zoning and role change (from distributed city council centres to territorial agents responsible for activating citizen-city collaboration), use participatory design methods as part of their ‘territory-making’ activities and as part of the participatory budget process.  

Within the participatory budget process itself, other approaches to engage citizens in urban planning and revitalisation efforts can be seen in various moments: co-defining the quarter’s strategic targets (shaping the call for the budget); shared decision-making at each step both in-person at general assembly meetings and online on the city’s digital platform; and shared management and monitoring of the project’s implementation.  

The technical initiator of the project is the City of Bologna and its Mayor at the time (Virginio Merola), however, the need for a new way to manage community assets came from the bottom-up, with an emblematic case of three citizens who wished to paint a bench. From this simple request, a political process began that saw the passing of a new Regulation on Community Assets (​​Regulations on the collaboration between citizens and the Public Administration for the guardianship and regeneration of common goods) in 2014. The implementation of this new regulation led to the development/re-organization of infrastructure (e.g. a new office to manage the pacts; a change in the role of city Quarters; establishment of the Office of Civic Imagination and Quarter Labs, etc.) and to the development of the Participatory Budget as a policy tool to implement the regulation. 

Political: The Regulation on Common Goods promoted the establishment of different relationships and means through which urban regeneration could develop between different actors. Not only did the regulation provide the legal grounds for such efforts but the co-created process of its development helped create an ecosystem around its implementation, leading to the design of the participatory budget. The co-creation of the Urban Innovation Plan was also instrumental to the process.  

Re-defining the roles of the City’s Quarter Offices also contributed to this, framing and incentivizing the necessary support coming from the public to guarantee the success of the collaborative pacts. A new dedicated office further assisted the efforts.  

Economic: The allocation of an annual budget for the program is key to the success of the project. It provides concrete means for citizen engagement in the city’s goals. Attention needs to be paid that implementation times aren’t excessive to maintain citizen trust. 

Social: Engaging citizens is a requirement of the process but it must be handled with respect and inclusivity. Care needs to be made that all actors are engaged, even and especially those on the margins. Bologna’s social context and capital is quite high, with a long history of civic participation and social innovation. The participatory process of the political campaign, “Collaborating is Bologna”, helped build capacity in the territory regarding public participation and engagement in co-defining strategic goals and helped pave the way for the participatory budget process.  

Technical: The presence of an already developed civic platform from the city helped the project reach different audiences and engage with them in their preferred way. Furthermore, the availability of spaces for events and meetings is important. The presence of permanent spaces to keep project material is important also for sensemaking and knowledge sharing between events and phases. 

Legal: As already mentioned, the Regulation on Common Goods was the initiator of the activity and provides the legal grounds for its development. 

Political: Political turnover represents a risk of continued support. The team is working hard to document the program and set everything up to ensure easy turnover to the new administration. 

Economic: The program requires political committment to ensure budget allocation. 

Technical: The urban projects require long implementation times. This creates frustration among citizens who want to see their projects come to life and risks losing their trust in the overall project. To mitigate this, cultural projects with an additional budget has been added to the last edition of the Participatory Budget to allow for quickly implementable solutions.  

As described above, the long implementation times for urban projects led to the creation of uneasy relations with the citizens. Creating an additional track of quickly implementable cultural projects helped fix this problem.  

The approach is quite easily scalable and has been in many cities across Europe (in terms of participatory budget and while less, also in terms of a law governing the management of common goods). Adaptations would be necessary based on context in terms of gaining political commitment and ensuring the infrastructure necessary to support the activities; and ways and measures to engage citizens and any necessary capacity-building of actors. 

Main positive lessons/opportunities identified:

• High engagement of citizens in strategic planning of city-wide goals 
• Practical measure to build territorial capacity amongst actors 
• Easily replicable in other contexts 

Main failures/barriers identified: 

• Vulnerable to political turnover 
• Risk of losing citizen trust due to long implementation times of urban projects 
• Difficulties in finding a shared language and calibrated expectations between citizens and public technicians  

• Number of projects submitted 
• Number of projects won + funding allocated 
• Number of participants + online interactions 
• Number of citizen collaborations