Knowledge, information, and trust: A mini-public approach

Work package 4 – Diagnosis

Work package 4 will examine citizen attitudes to scientific information disorder and knowledge circulation, and how these issues impact political trust. This will be done by organising five national and one transnational mini-public in which citizens will frame discussions and formulate policy recommendations, with particular attention to new communication technologies and their implications.

Mini-publics are key to REGROUP research, as it explores the lived experiences of citizens, as well as to empower citizens in EU policy-making for more democratic and resilient crisis governance. Participants will formulate a verdict, which will be presented to the European Parliament.

In 2023, our WP partners organise five national mini-publics:

• Jacques Delors Institute in Paris, France
• University of Groningen in Utrecht, the Netherlands
• Europa-Kolleg Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany
• European University Institute in Florence, Italy
• Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland

In March 2024, the European Policy Centre hosts a transnational mini-public in Brussels.

Team

Lead

Benjamin Leruth, Assistant Professor of European Politics and Society at the University of Groningen.

Timeline

Running from October 2022 to October 2024

Deliverables

Mini-public methodology brief: Designing multi-level mini-publics: The REGROUP experiment on knowledge, information, and trust

Report: National mini-public report – France

Report: National mini-public report – Germany

Report: National mini-public report – The Netherlands

Report: National mini-public report – Italy

Report: National mini-public report – Poland

Report: Transnational mini-public report

Research paper: The politics of expertise in the COVID-19 pandemic: A multi-level mini-public approach