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Citizen participation on digital administration in Jena

29.04.2022

From March to June, all Jena residents can find out about the status of the Smart City process and get involved in various topics.

In the second date of the workshop series, digital administration was on the agenda. The city of Jena wants to make its services more and more available digitally. Many of the city of Jena's online services are already in the pipeline, and in the future more than 500 administrative services are to be offered digitally.

The flow of information and communication between the administration and citizens will thus be simplified immensely. In the future, Jena's citizens will be able to complete many typical administrative procedures digitally. Opening hours of public authorities will then no longer be an obstacle, because digital services can be used around the clock. This will not only save time, but also a trip to the authorities. The paper files that have dominated administration to date can thus be dispensed with in the long term. This saves paper, but also space: the space previously required for archives can then be put to other sensible uses.

Ideas for the digital transformation

The information and discussion event focused on how the city should implement its ideas for digital administration. Is there a need for information that is as comprehensive as possible and accessible in a variety of formats, or is a streamlined app best suited? Is a chatbot helpful for answering questions about all administrative services?

There was also a discussion about what citizens want the city of Jena to make possible in the future. Participants were able to express their ideas and talk about advantages and disadvantages. Among the points discussed were:

  • Citizens:inside should be actively involved in the development processes. It was important to the participants that very different target groups be allowed to test prototypes and, for example, that an app for the urban community be based on people's needs. Concrete wishes for content and functions were then directly collected for the further development of the app idea.
  • The participants were also interested in how Jena can offer additional services that are tailored to their needs, in addition to the mandatory online services. Here there was an important discussion about the scope for action and also the limits that the city has in view of the OZG* developments.
  • Digital administration also means being able to strengthen the human factor of administration again. It was discussed how a clever interlocking of digital services on the one hand and on-site consulting for citizens on the other can function. Among other things, it became clear that although administrative employees could lose some of their tasks, the task profile for other citizen-oriented services could grow as a result.

Chief Digital Officer and overall Smart City project manager Manuela Meyer, said of the commitment of the citizens involved: "We are delighted with the ideas of our citizens. They show that people in Jena want to get involved and help shape things. In addition, they naturally help us to make the city administration's digital offerings as close to the citizens as possible."

Almost like being present: event on digital platform

The participation event was held on the Gather.Town platform. This made it possible to participate digitally in the conference, to visit workshop rooms virtually, and to engage in conversation with the subproject leaders as well as participating guests. Even though the event was conducted digitally, these options made it very close to a face-to-face event.

Smart City Process

Since September 2020, the city of Jena has been funded as part of the Smart Cities model projects of the German Federal Ministry of the Interior and Homeland. The city is currently developing its own digital strategy. Before this is submitted to the Jena City Council for a decision, Jena's citizens will be involved in the process through various channels and events and their ideas will be recorded.

Further information and access to online participation can be found at smartcity.jena.de.