Foreword  3

Acknowledgements  4

Executive summary  7

Key findings  8

1 Introduction: Citizen participation in Cohesion Policy  11

Setting the scene: Cohesion Policy is the main investment policy in the European Union  12

Citizen participation in Cohesion Policy  13

Cohesion Policy and the OECD-DG REGIO collaboration  15

References  18

2 The experience of 11 pilots across seven EU countries  19

Selection of participating territories  20

The 11 OECD-DG REGIO pilots  20

Beyond individual pilots: Citizen participation as a versatile toolbox to improve Cohesion Policy at the subnational level  30

References  37

3 Lessons learned: Well-designed participation improves policies while strengthening trust and legitimacy  39

Designing and implementing meaningful participatory processes  41

Achieving policy impact: participation can increase policy effectiveness  48

Building democratic skills and increasing public trust  50

Challenges identified through the OECD-DG REGIO pilots  52

References  55

4 Beyond experimentation: Transforming local governance to embed meaningful participation in Cohesion Policy  57

Strengthening the preconditions that enable meaningful participation  58

Conclusion  64

Next steps: Key actions for Cohesion Policy to increase the value and impact of participation  65

References  68

Glossary  71

Key terms on EU Cohesion Policy  71

Key terms on participation  72