Increasing the Responsiveness of Social Services to Citizen Voice Across Europe: Citizen experiences of co-creation processes

This report presents the results and the analysis of a qualitative empirical study of citizens’
experiences of taking part in co-creation processes in social services across six European countries (Austria, Denmark, France, Poland, Portugal, and Romania). The study focuses on citizens’ experiences of four different types of social services:

• Community-based disability services
• Mental health services
• Child protection services
• Services for young people at risk of social exclusion

The report is part of the Horizon Europe research and innovation project ‘Increasing
responsiveness to citizen voice in social services across Europe’ (RESPONSIVE) from 2023- 2026. It presents the results of Work Package 2 in the project “Citizen experiences of taking part in co-creation processes”, where the objectives are to:

• Collect the views of diverse citizens about the impact of citizen input in digital and non-digital
consultative and participatory structures in social services.
• Analyse participatory events and processes in social services to understand processes of
voice, accountability and intersectional inequality in the range and variance in responsiveness
to diverse citizen voices.
• Study citizen views on feedback loops, transparency and accountability in participatory
actions and if they feel informed about the impact of their input on service development
and decision-making.

The report illuminates how citizens experience and/or have experienced responsiveness within the four types of social services and their experiential knowledge of developing social services.