This document provides an overview of the Crowd_USG project, which aims to investigate how crowdsourcing can advance participatory governance of urban sustainability. The project will analyze current applications of crowdsourcing for governance, study its use in Ghent through interviews, develop future scenarios, and outline a model for urban sustainability governance incorporating crowdsourcing. It will use methods like actor-network theory to manage the case study and engage the public. The project seeks to determine if and how crowdsourcing can fuel participatory knowledge production and policy-making for urban sustainability issues.

1. CROWD_USG
Crowdsourcing urban sustainability governance
Open initial seminar by Chiara Certomà
CDO, Ghent University
June 15th 2017
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under
the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellowship Programme, grant agreement no. 740191.

2. Where CROWD_USG comes from

3. Building blocks
1. focus on urban sustainability governance
2. transformation of traditional participatory processes
3. emergence of web for society and democracy

4. URBAN
SUSTAINABILITY
GOVERNANCE
Participation: people
involvement in
knowledge production
and decision-making
Multidimensionality:
balance of the
ecological/environment
al measures with social
measures
Equality: mechanism to
promote social and
environmental justice
(recognition,
redistribution,
empowerment)
Purposiveness:
operationalize
principles of
ecosystem protection,
environmental
management and
human needs
Collaboration (internal):
substantive agenda
sharable by institutions,
businesses, civil society
organisations, NGOs and
people based on
reciprocity
Cooperation (external):
links between
international and
transnational actors in
order to global
environmental goals
Adaptability:
progressive and
dynamic goal-
changing agenda
Transparency:
advancing effective
democratic
institutions
1. focus on urban sustainability governance

5. 2. transformation of traditional participatory processes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEWlsiEyuZ4 https://openideo.com/
research design data production/collection
data
analysis/discussion/elaboration
definition of tools and
procedures for data sharing and
disclosure
Participatory research
Participatory decision-making
priorities definition policy definition
implementation
measures
assessment

6. Emerging forms of participation
Harvesting data, opinions and knowledge
Enhancing people’s social participation
and political empowerment
tools
(e.g. smartphone software,
blogs, wikis, social bookmarking
applications, social networking,
peer to peer…)
open access data-bases and
open-source software
3. emergence of web for society and democracy

7. Crowdsourcing

8. private organisations
public sector
information gathering, large-
scale data analysis, ideation
problems with empirically
provable solutions or where
solutions are matters of taste by
fostering innovative
contributions in research-design
or policy-making
problem solving, creative
input generation, opinion poll,
outsourcing task, or raising
money for the sake of the
proposing organisation itself

9. Different forms of crowdsourcing
1. collaborative contents (e.g. Wikipedia), multiple content aggregators (e.g. Flickr, YouTube
and Twitter), big-data analysis applications (e.g. data mining software Many Eyes; or cluster
and social networks mining NodeXL)
2. networked system of sensing devices, social media and mobile communication networks
for data-processing (e.g. Citizen Cyberlab EU project), collaborative peer-production (e.g.
Public Lab organisation or the HackteriaLab2014)
3. Social mapping: map creation, data management and storage, peer-to-peer and
information sharing and improving maps functionalities

10. Certomà, Corsini, Rizzi, 2015

11. Digital Agenda for Europe

12. CROWD_USG objectives
GENERAL AIM
to investigate whether and how crowdsourcing processes can advance real
participatory knowledge and policy-making in the governance of urban sustainability.
SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVES
• Reviewing current knowledge on the adoption of crowdsourcing processes for fuelling
participatory governance processes and dealing with urban sustainability issues;
• Analysing the functioning of digital technology in the city governance by analysing forefront
applications in a real case study (i.e. the city of Ghent);
• Prefiguring future governance scenarios that are likely to occur by introducing crowdsourcing
for sustainability in a real case (i.e. the city of Ghent);
• Analysing how technological agency (and crowdsourcing in particular) can transform
knowledge production and decision-making processes;
• Outlining a general USG model characterised by the implementation of relevant
crowdsourcing processes and tools;
COMPLEMENTARY OBJECTIVES
• Effectively managing the case study through a appropriate combination of direct and indirect
data-retrieving methodologies (see Research methodologies and theoretical approach);
• Illustrating the case study results by granting public engagement via internet-based tools,
public events, media coverage, and a wide range of deliverables aimed at different audience
(general public, policy-makers, academia)

13. Overview of the action and workflow
Analysis of the different crowdsourcing processes and tools
available for governance purposes
Analysis of the convergences between crowdsourcing and the
USG requirements
Exploration of the ICTs-based USG processes activated in
Ghent through application of ANT analytic tools to the case
study (interviews)
Building future urban sustainability governance scenarios
Analysis of the impact of crowdsourcing on participatory
process in both knowledge-production and decision-making.

14. Crowd-USG methodology
• Ant
• Rapid Appraisal
• Scenario Building

15. Heterogeneous (actor)networks (assemblages)
Natureculturetechnics domain
Distributed agency
Things-oriented poli cs
Assemblies (collec ves)
Listening & speacking devices
Material Semio c Postenvironmentalism
Affirma ve characters of postenvironmental thinking
Refuse of dualism realism-construc vism
Repoli cisa on of environmental issues
Material Semio c
(and ANT)
OntologyEpistemologyPolics
Knowledge as a set social prac ces
Transla on & media on tools
Power as consequence of networking

16. Environmental Issue

17. …comments, suggestions, critiques, endorsement are very
appreciated now!
Thank you!
Chiara.Certoma@Ugent.be
www.crowdusg.net