Citizen Voices for Just Cities: Rethinking Participation, Technology and Knowledge Production in Urban Research, Education and Practice

Citizen Voices for Just Cities: Rethinking Participation, Technology and Knowledge Production in Urban Research, Education and Practice Editors Juliana Gonçalves1* Geertje Slingerland 1* Manuel Garcia Alvarez2 Selin Kubilay2 Virginia Facciotto1 Isabella Jaramillo Diaz1 Jing Spaaij1 Inger van Dok1 Drew Harris1 1 Department of Urbanism, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft 2 Digital Competence Center, TU Delft * Corresponding editors: [email protected], [email protected] Contributors Adele Therias, Aditi Natarajan, Alice Jelmini, Aruzhan Makasheva, Audrey Esteban, Aulia Imania Sukma, Boaz Peters, Bram Terwogt, Carla Robb, Céline Janssen, Cem Ataman, ChiaLi Wang, Chiara Mazzarella, Cinco Yu, Daniella de Rijke Rodriguez, Daphne Palza, David Limaverde, Francisco Santos, Gamze Dane, Gerard van Bortel, Hendrik Ploeger, Hijme Boerma, Ieva Cesnulaityte, Janine van Druten-Ubert, Johnathan Subendran, Jonas Althuis, Juliette Cortes Arevalo, Kiran Reddy, Lei Qu, Maiara Uliana, Marh Echtai, Marieke Russchen, Mehmet Ali Gasseloğlu, Miranda Laurence, Nazanin Karimi, Odilia van der Valle, Pierre Kauter, Reinout Kleinhans, Remon Rooij, Roberto Rocco, Rodrigo d’Avila, Sahar Asadollahi, Shahryar Sarabi, Xinyu Lin, Yingpeng Chu, Yingxin Zhang, Yun-Ching Wu, Zoe Tzika. Design Virginia Facciotto How to cite Gonçalves, J. E., Slingerland, G., Kubilay, S., Garcia Alvarez, M., Facciotto, V., Spaaij, J., Isabella, J. D., & de Rijke Rodríguez, D. (2025). Progress in Citizen Engagement and Digital Participation: Contributions from the TU Delft Citizen Voice Initiative. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16917910 Citizen Voices for Just Cities: Rethinking Participation, Technology and Knowledge Production in Urban Research, Education and Practice A Position Paper by the TU Delft Citizen Voice Publication & Access Driven by Citizen Voice’s strong commitment to open science and knowledge sharing, this position paper is published under an open access license to ensure accessibility. It is made publicly available through Citizen Voice’s digital platforms and institutional repositories, enabling broad dissemination across academic, policy, and community networks. This open publication model reflects Citizen Voice’s belief that knowledge, especially that which emerges from collaborative and participatory processes, should be freely available. The Citizen Voice team encourages academics, practitioners, community organisers, and students to engage with, critique, and build upon the ideas presented in this document. For any inquiries, please contact [email protected] and [email protected]. Acknowledgments In April 2025, the TU Delft Citizen Voice Initiative held a workshop at the intersection of participation, technologies, and transdisciplinary approaches to research and practice. The event brought together over 50 academics, practitioners, and students from various interdisciplinary backgrounds. This position paper reflects the discussions during the workshop as well as the insights of four years of research conducted within the TU Delft Citizen Voice Initiative, founded by Dr. Juliana Gonçalves. We are grateful to everyone who has supported us, whether through symbolic gestures of interest, active collaboration, or sustained engagement with our work. First and foremost, we acknowledge the dedication and contributions of past and present members of the TU Delft Citizen Voice Initiative: Juliana Gonçalves, Carissa Champlin, Claudiu Forgaci, Daniella de Rijke Rodríguez, Drew Harris, Geertje Slingerland, Gerdus van der Laarse, Inger van Dok, Ioannis Ioannou, Isabella Jaramillo Diaz, Jing Spaaij, Johannes IJpma, Johanna Zehntner, Marc Haan, Manuel Garcia Alvares, Maria Gil Falcon, Milou Mulder, Selin Kubilay, Sombutta Sinha, Trivik Verma, Virginia Facciotto, and Yaren Aslan. We also warmly thank all workshop participants for sharing their insights, learning alongside us, and helping to create a collegial yet critical atmosphere during the launch event. A special thanks goes to Trivik Verma and Claudiu Forgaci and the SPRING program, the first to support our vision of developing openaccess resources for participatory urbanism. We are equally grateful to the community of Oud Mathenesse in Rotterdam; Janine van Druten-Ubert, Eleftheria Karyoti, Sarah and Merel van Tellingen from Mathenesse aan de Maas; Anja Overdiek from Haagse Hogeschool; Mike Duijn from Erasmus University; and René van der Veer and Thijs Ewalts from Bioto for their collaboration in the Bio-CiVo project. Finally, we acknowledge with gratitude the organisations that made this work possible through funding and grants: the TU Delft Digital Competence Center, the SPRING program of the Convergence Alliance, the TU Delft Climate Action Program, the Resilient Delta Initiative, the Dutch Research Council (NWO – CIVILIAN project), and the Horizon Innovation Actions (UP2030 Project, grant agreement n°101096405). Abstract This position paper examines the challenges and opportunities of participatory planning and design, with a focus on transdisciplinary action research and digital technologies. Drawing on insights from the TU Delft Citizen Voice Initiative and a workshop with academics, practitioners, and students, this position paper identifies key enablers of participation, including trust, transparency, reciprocity, and epistemic justice, while also addressing structural, institutional, and ethical barriers. Particular attention is given to power dynamics in participatory processes and the undervaluing of lived experience in relation to expert knowledge and bias. The paper further explores the role of digital participation, noting its potential to broaden inclusion through open-source platforms, gamification, and AIbased tools, but also highlighting risks related to accessibility, technological sovereignty, and the hype cycle of emerging innovations. Transdisciplinary action research is presented as a pathway to more collaborative and just practices, though it also faces institutional and ethical constraints. To advance participation in research, education and practice, the paper ends with 14 strategies that emphasise epistemic justice, inclusivity, long-term engagement, capacity-building, and experiential education that embed participation as a process rather than a one-off intervention. Citizen Voice Position Paper 2025 8 9 Introduction Debates about public participation and civic engagement in urban governance have been evolving since the 50s and 60s, decades marked by significant social upheavals with various urban social movements influencing politics, civil rights, and cultural attitudes. One of the early thinkers in the field was Sherry Arnstein, whose seminal paper “A Ladder of Citizen Participation” (1969) laid the groundwork for understanding power dynamics within participation processes. Arnstein opens the paper by comparing citizen participation with eating spinach: “no one is against it in principle because it is good for you”. The reason why participation is deemed good in theory is because it is usually associated with democratic ideas, and generally no one thinks that democracy is not desirable. She then moves on to argue that the support for participation is reduced to “polite handclaps” when this principle is advocated by the “have-nots”. The have-nots being the ones excluded from planning, cutting across gender, class, and race. Another important contribution of this time was the concept of ‘the right to the city’, articulated by the French philosopher Henri Lefebvre (1968), emphasising the idea that all citizens have the right to produce and reproduce the city according to their needs and aspirations. For Lefebvre, space is not an empty container but a product of social relations. In this light, the right to the city is “a collective rather than an individual right since changing the city inevitably depends upon the exercise of a collective power over the processes of urbanisation” (Harvey, 2008). These critiques did not happen in a vacuum. They were prompted by and intertwined with social movements at the time and led to a real shift in planning, from top-down to more collaborative and empowering models of participation. In the 70s, advocacy planning emerged (Paul Davidoff, 1965) emphasising the need for planners to advocate for the interests of marginalised and disenfranchised communities. This was followed by communicative planning (Healey, 1997; Innes, 1995) and deliberative planning (Forester, 1999), which further advanced participatory ideals through consensus-building, structured discourse, and deliberative practices. The formalisation of participatory values gained further momentum with initiatives such as the 1992 Local Agenda 21 at the Rio Earth Summit, promoting collaborative and communicative planning approaches. In the 2010s, the United Nations adopted inclusive urbanisation as a core element of the sustainable development agenda, recognising cities as key arenas for achieving global development objectives. Nowadays, the importance of creating inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable cities is enshrined as Goal 11 “Sustainable Cities and Communities” of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), crosscutting other goals such as Goal 10 “Reduced Inequalities” and Goal 5 “Gender Equality”. However, despite this long history, the implementation of participatory processes remains uneven and often symbolic and, many times, co-opted by technocratic agendas that misuse participation as a depoliticised exercise (Mattern, 2020). This technocratic framing can lead to the further marginalisation of alternative voices and reinforce existing power structures rather than disrupt them (Goncalves et al., 2024). Within complex and highly unequal spaces such as the city, engaging citizens and other local groups is by no means a trivial task. Urban decision-makers, planners and designers require specific methodologies and tools to understand the diverse needs and aspirations of various groups and address the practical challenges and value conflicts that emerge from this complexity. From a citizen-perspective, too, innovative methods and approaches are necessary to enable citizens and communities to voice their opinions in ways that are appropriate to them, beyond conventional methods such as public hearings. This is linked to a relatively recent growing interest in the role of creativity, arts, rituals, and cultural practices in addressing the spiralling socio-ecological crises unfolding today and affecting people and communities worldwide (Gabrys & Yusoff, 2012; Fotaki et al., 2020; Machen et al., 2023; Berger et al., 2024). Contributions in this direction may help to contest existing power dynamics and create the conditions for real transformative interventions in the world (Yusoff & Gabrys, 2011; Paproki, 2020). Literature shows that digital participation tools can also support engagement processes, given their potential to enable remote participation and reach a large number of citizens (Kahila-Tani, Broberg, et al. 2016; Kahila-Tani, Kytta, and Geertman 2019). However, digital tools for citizen engagement are usually designed from a top-down expert perspective without considering how citizens interact with technology (Gooch et al. 2015; Biedermann et al. 2023), potentially deepening the digital divide and leading to adverse effects such as the rejection of technology altogether. Moreover, most digital tools available are generic, failing to address the specificity of particular contexts, target groups, and planning needs (Goncalves et al., 2025, forthcoming). Therefore, although opportunities brought about by digitalisation are promising, various challenges need to be addressed to ensure the inclusive and meaningful adoption of digital tools in urban decision-making (Goncalves et al., 2024). In academia, the increasing reliance of data-driven methodologies as well as the paradigm of transdisciplinarity raise ethical challenges (Calzati & Ploeger, 2024). The growing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and big data, in particular, raises concerns of privacy, algorithmic biases, data governance, among others (Goncalves, 2023). Simultaneously, transdisciplinary approaches, which involve collaboration across academic disciplines as well as with non-academic partners, including citizens and communities, further complicates the ethical landscape by challenging traditional norms of authorship, power dynamics, knowledge flows, and epistemic hierarchies (Brand et al., 2025). In this context, Citizen Voice emerged as a bottom-up initiative at TU Delft to engage critically with the issues described above, aiming to empower communities in urban planning and design through inclusive and meaningful participation and critical data practices. Citizen Voice started in 2021 from the bottom and has grown organically until today, receiving support from various institutions within and outside TU Delft. Citizen Voice works with three core principles: (1) inclusive and situated participation, (2) creative and design-based methodologies, and (3) transdisciplinary and open research practices. We recognise participation as a deeply political endeavour and have a critical perspective on the power dynamics Citizen Voice Position Paper 2025 10 11 within participation processes. We also emphasise the importance of actionable insights and innovative tools and methods that support practitioners in the field and citizens in real life. This dual perspective is encapsulated in our unique critical action research approach. Over the past four years, we have been conducting research projects to understand how citizens and communities perceive their environment. We have developed digital tools, interactive prototypes, and art exhibitions to engage citizens and communities in complex topics such as climate change and urban biodiversity. Through this participatory research approach, we deepen the understanding of how citizens and communities perceive their environment and how they interact with technologies. We also engage critically with current trends in public participation and citizen engagement, including the increasing implementation of digital tools and artificial intelligence in urban governance, planning and design. By doing so, we seek to understand how technology shapes space and social relations in cities. In addition to understanding technological trends, we also develop open software and ethical guidelines for transdisciplinary collaborations, aiming to counterbalance the increasing commodification of urban technologies and data and fostering ethical and collaborative research environments. This position paper presents the results of a workshop held by the Citizen Voice team in April, 2025, at TU Delft. The event brought together over 50 academics, practitioners, and students from various disciplines to discuss key questions at the intersections of citizen and community engagement in planning and design, digital participation technologies and open science, and transdisciplinary and participatory research. The workshop was designed to gather insights on barriers, enablers and trends in participatory planning and design, digital participation, and transdisciplinary research. The position paper also includes insights from several research projects carried out under the umbrella of the Citizen Voice Initiative. In the following sections, we present the results along three overarching but intersecting themes: Participatory Planning & Design, Digital Participation, and Transdisciplinary Research. Because the themes are interlinked, these three parts may sound repetitive, but we chose to keep them as such precisely to highlight their overlapping nature. At the end, we offer a set of strategies to advance participation at the intersection of the three themes, covering research, education, and practice. Participatory Planning & Design This section focuses on the relationships between the proponents of participatory processes and the participants. It assumes participation generally as a topdown practice led by public authorities and/or participatory experts. Although we recognise that participation in urban governance also happens bottom up, for example, through protest and community-led initiatives, the purpose of this section is to support planners and designers involved in participatory processes in fostering better and meaningful participation. The workshop reveals that consistency and transparency are key enablers of public participation, particularly to address issues of lack of trust between public authorities and citizens. Related to that is the role of trusted community figures who can facilitate broader engagement and help shape how, when, and where to participate. Reciprocity and long-term commitment also emerged in the discussions related to trust-building. Participation should be a process with ongoing engagement, not a one-off event. Another key enabler that emerged in the workshop discussions was the pursuit of epistemic justice in participatory settings. Epistemic justice inquires into the fairness in knowledge-related practices and whether all individuals and groups have their perspectives respected and valued. This also involves access to knowledge production, knowledge dissemination, and knowledge utilisation, which goes beyond one-off co-creation events. However, despite the increasing efforts towards co-creation of knowledge, urban research and practice still often prioritise scientific and expert knowledge over local and lived experiences of citizens. This is worsened by power imbalances in participation: public authorities and/or experts define and initiate the participatory process, while citizens and other local actors are invited to participate in. A shift is needed here to involve citizens in the definition of the participatory process itself. This way, experts can learn what works for citizens in terms of participatory practices, including what kind of methods and formats are more suitable, who should be involved, where to host participation and for how long. We also note that many citizens believe their knowledge can never be useful for experts or that they may require some kind of ‘previous’ expert knowledge to participate in decisionmaking. This is further complicated by the use of inaccessible communication. Conventional maps and technical planning documents, for example, may prevent people from engaging meaningfully. Communicating that no previous knowledge is required and using appropriate methods is the minimum we can do, but on a deeper level we stay with the question of how to shift epistemic perspectives of both citizens and experts to acknowledge that lived experience is previous knowledge, which is at the core of epistemic justice debates. This is particularly important because professionals usually do not live in the places for which they make plans or designs for, thus lacking such contextual, lived experience. Questions of knowledge production were raised linked to what workshop participants termed “design bias”, where designers may prioritise form and aesthetics over lived experience. Ultimately, we observe that citizenPlenary session during the Citizen Voice workshop in April 2025. Citizen Voice Position Paper 2025 12 13 individuals and communities to engage in participatory processes because of a (perceived) lack of meaningful impact. While participation fatigue is directly related to “box-ticking” exercises, there are other more practical factors at play. The workshop participants highlighted that the post-participation phase is particularly weak, and data is collected but often unused or not translated into concrete action. In addition, the lack of transparency and expectation management in the process, where the outcomes of participation are not clearly communicated and, more importantly, not agreed upon with participants leads to misaligned expectations and consequently frustration. Another factor influencing participation fatigue is the lack of sustained engagement to keep participants in the loop throughout the entire cycle of urban development projects. This includes regular follow-ups to at least keep participants informed about what happened to the information they provided. Besides structural barriers, several more ‘practical’ challenges also remain. Insufficient budgets allocated for participation and rigid project deadlines strongly undermine participation. In addition, the lack of time, resources, and training dedicated to participation leads to poorly planned participatory processes without concrete benefits for those participants. This is one of the reasons why participation is often perceived as ineffective or tokenism. Workshop participants also highlighted the lack of practical training in education, as students often receive theoretical but not practical training in participatory planning and design. Low inclusivity is a recurring issue in participatory processes, where often the same groups of people participate repeatedly, while others lack interest, access, or time to engage. The lack of transparency about the process itself worsens this problem because when people do not understand how decisions are made, what their role is, how their input will be used, or how they can challenge and intervene in decisions, they may feel excluded or see no purpose in participating. Without clear information on the goals, timelines, and decision-making pathways, those who are already hesitant or face barriers to participation are further discouraged, reinforcing the dominance of already engaged groups. Moreover, transparency is closely tied to people’s learning process about the power they hold in shaping decisions that affect their lives. When communities see clearly how participation works and witness tangible impacts of their involvement, it can build their confidence and sense of agency. As a result, lack of transparency not only compounds existing inequalities in who participates and whose voices are heard but also limits the development of civic capacity and empowerment over time. Ethical dilemmas also emerged in the discussion. Participants highlight that asking citizens and communities to participate in planning and design activities without delivering benefits or results is problematic. If not much can be offered, then this has to be clear from the beginning. We must also reflect on whether it is better to retreat in cases where participation does not have a clear goal or resources for follow-up and implementation. Outsourcing participation to private companies is also becoming a trend, raising ethical dilemmas as well. Outsourcing undermines the potential of participation as a democratic endeavour while also blurring the accountability of public authorities for the outcomes of participatory processes. One of the reasons for participation outsourcing is the lack of internal capacity, led outcomes may not align with professional visions. This is because citizen priorities are often grounded in practical and experiential concerns such as safety, affordability, accessibility, and social connections within neighbourhoods whilst professional visions tend to be shaped by design discourses and planning frameworks that emphasise form, aesthetics, climate adaptation improvements, technical innovation, or efficiency. For example, designers might propose green areas to enhance urban aesthetics and support climate adaptation goals, but community members may prefer paved shaded areas or covered communal spaces that are easier to maintain, reduce mosquito breeding, and do not attract animals they perceive as unsafe. This disconnect highlights how design bias can overlook lived realities, revealing tensions between design proposals and what people actually value and need in their environments. However, it is precisely at this intersection between two ways of knowing, the communal and the professional, where meaningful collaboration can emerge to co-create designs, spaces, and processes that integrate both forms of knowledge. Structural and institutional barriers also hinder inclusive and meaningful participation. Having participatory processes in place does not automatically ensure inclusion and fairness in the decision-making process, as participatory systems can still exclude minority groups. The recruitment process of participants therefore needs more attention, as usually the same people participate: the ones who have time to participate and access to participatory processes. While it is true that people are more likely to engage in decision-making processes when they have a particular interest or “stake” in the decision at hand, many people simply do not have the time, do not know what instruments exist, or do not believe their opinion is relevant, revealing underlying factors that exclude people from civic participation. Attention to who participates and who does not, while addressing the reasons why this happens, helps to uncover both practical challenges as well as underlying inequalities in participatory processes. Citizen Voice’s research has shown that one way of promoting inclusive participation is the use of rewards (Goncalves et al., 2024). Whether monetary or not, rewards serve not only as incentives for participation but also ‘to give something back’ to participants, taking forms such as financial compensation, gifts, discount codes, or participation certificates. Financial compensation, in particular, is not only attracting participation but also fair, as people invest their time and share their knowledge. This is particularly important for those who might need to take a day off to participate or hire care for their children if participation happens after work or on the weekends. However, our research also shows that we must beware of overusing rewards to avoid influencing or manipulating participant’s opinions. Moreover, although participation has become an integral part in planning in many countries worldwide, even mandatory in some cases like in The Netherlands. Research projects are also increasingly demanding the inclusion of societal partners outside academia. While this can lead to increased participation, the institutionalisation of participation may lead to a “checklist mentality”, where participation becomes a superficial “box-ticking” exercise rather than meaningful engagement. “Participation” is, therefore, at risk of becoming an empty buzzword, if it has not yet become. A serious consequence of the “checklist mentality” is participation fatigue, which refers to a decline in the willingness of Citizen Voice Position Paper 2025 14 15 including expertise and time, to carry out participatory activities. Instead of outsourcing, building internal capacity should be a priority to ensure that participation is meaningfully embedded in existing planning processes. Finally, emerging trends in the field of participatory planning and design were highlighted. The first is the use of innovative digital tools, particularly artificial intelligence, which enables real-time data analysis and feedback. AI-enhanced engagement can also personalise and deepen participation, via conversational AI, for example, but also increase the distance between professionals and the public that they seek to engage. As the use of AI in public participation is still being explored, critical scholars must follow these efforts closely. Other participation methods like (serious) games and storytelling also appear to be more appropriate to accommodate diverse demographics, with potential to better address the complexity of socio-ecological crisis of today, for example, through the inclusion of more-than-human actors. For instance, storytelling workshops might include exercises where participants speak from the perspective of a local river, an old tree, an animal or even an existing building, like a museum or school, imagining their needs and rights within the planning process. This helps to foreground environmental concerns and collective values in the built environment, ensuring that decisions consider not only human interests but also urban nature and the built environment itself as active participants in urban decisions. With these trends, the rise of participation-focused startups was also noted, as many small initiatives and consultancies are emerging, but face funding and institutional constraints. While such initiatives can support public authorities as well as communities in participatory processes, their emergence also means that participation is at least partially outsourced, widening the gap between authorities and communities and blurring accountability processes. Digital Participation The findings of the workshop confirm that digital tools can serve as both enablers and barriers to meaningful public participation. While digital literacy is steadily increasing, there is no onesize-fits-all. For example, certain groups may feel more comfortable engaging with tools that rely on visual rather than textual communication; others may prefer gamified participation. In addition, tools must be designed in ways that reflect users’ lived experiences and needs, addressing issues relevant to the everyday life of people. This means translating abstract concepts like global warming and biodiversity loss into local impacts. Digital participation must therefore account for the diversity of users, which may require offering different interfaces or entirely separate tools tailored to varying needs. The use of diverse digital features such as maps, icons, and color-coded interfaces can help reduce entry barriers and foster inclusivity. Diversity also calls for combining digital engagement with in-person participation methods to accommodate different preferences and ensure broader inclusion. A key challenge is, however, how to effectively integrate and synthesise data gathered from these varied participatory activities into urban practice and policy. The use of open science principles and open-source software platforms, such as QGIS, further supports the development and dissemination of participatory digital tools. These open systems promote wider accessibility, reduce duplication of effort, and foster innovation by allowing communities, researchers and developers to build upon existing resources, rather than starting from scratch. More than open software, the development of open, accessible “digital knowledge banks” or learning hubs is key to enabling both citizens and institutions to accumulate digital knowledge and better understand and engage with digital technologies in the long-term. The centralisation of participatory processes within a coordinated platform or hub can enhance efficiency and coherence, helping to prevent the repetitive solicitation of similar input from the same communities. This approach supports participant fatigue reduction, fosters cumulative knowledge-building, and promotes more strategic and ethical engagement practices. Directly linked to the idea of “digital knowledge banks” is the meaningful use of digital tools in planning practice. Digital tools should be embedded throughout the planning process, not used as one-off interventions. Singleuse tools risk being seen as tokenistic and fail to build lasting trust or impact. Input gathered in one-off participation also tends to be siloed, preventing reuse by others. In contrast, integration across multiple planning stages, such as visioning, design, feedback, and evaluation, allows for ongoing engagement, data coherence, and more transparent and traceable processes. Structural and systemic challenges also hinder the widespread and effective use of digital tools in participatory planning. These include userfriendliness for nonexperts, proprietary software restrictions, limited access to relevant data, concerns over data privacy, and the concentration of AI tool ownership. Practical constraints also play a role. In many planning contexts, there is simply not enough time or resources to acquire and tailor a digital tool to the specific needs of a participatory process. Technological Results from the Citizen Voice workshop in April 2025. Citizen Voice Position Paper 2025 16 17 literacy, of citizens but also of governing bodies such as municipalities, can also get in the way of implementing digital tools for participatory planning. As a result, more traditional engagement methods, such as interviews or town hall meetings, are still commonly used. At a broader level, concerns around technological sovereignty must be addressed. Who owns the tools and infrastructure used for civic engagement? How transferrable is the knowledge generated by digital participation processes? It is also important to consider whether participatory efforts should prioritise wide-scale engagement or more targeted, context-specific interactions. Quantity does not always equate to quality. Emerging trends in participatory design, such as the use of AI, gamification techniques, open-source development, and alignment with global innovation networks like Impact Hub, offer exciting possibilities but also require critical scrutiny. While AI-generated content can make tools more engaging, they are never free of bias. Furthermore, the rapid pace of digital innovation creates a risk of chasing short-lived trends that do not lead to lasting, equitable outcomes. Technological infrastructures often have short lifespans, and tools can be repurposed or misused in harmful ways. More generally, many trends emerge and disappear quickly, so there is a fine line to walk between welcoming new trends into participatory planning while avoiding hype traps. Ultimately, digital tools should be understood as one component within a broader ecosystem of participatory planning. Their potential lies not only in their functionality, but in how they are introduced, supported, and embedded within planning processes. Transdisciplinary Action Research This section discusses transdisciplinary (TD) approaches in research. Transdisciplinarity is becoming a buzzword, and therefore needs to be (re) defined. In this case, transdisciplinary action research means that academics collaborate with partners from practice in developing, setting up, and executing and upscaling action-oriented projects. These TD partnerships can include citizen communities and individual residents, but also professional actors, for example local governments, local businesses, planners, and designers. The workshop identified existing (trust) relationships with actors from practice as a key enabler. Especially when working with citizen communities, we need to embed ourselves into communities to establish these trust relationships beforehand. One of the participants mentioned that the community should feel that the researcher is “one of us”. Each community has key figures who are trusted by many: they could act as essential bridges between researchers and the rest of the citizen community. Another key enabler and practice of transdisciplinary research and innovation is to set the goals of the project together. This means starting without rigid frameworks and co-develop the process throughout the project, together with all involved, to encourage mutual learning and enhance citizen and community engagement. In the initial stage of the research, communication and understanding across disciplines and linked to the context should be fostered. Very practically, this means that perhaps no “real research” is happening, in the sense that there is no data collection yet, because the aim is to understand each other and create a shared way of thinking and language. The shared decision-making process should also be designed at this point. Workshop participants also identified several challenges to doing transdisciplinary action research, related to institutional barriers, practical limitations, and ethical principles. Institutional barriers stem from a shortterm focus. Funding is time-limited and poses the challenge of sustaining community trust when academics leave because their project is done without a satisfying outcome for the community. Furthermore, transdisciplinary academics struggle to be taken seriously by their peers because they are working beyond the disciplinary norms and in strong collaboration with practice. Ethical procedures also hinder work in a transdisciplinary way, due to their rigidity. Current and traditional ethics protocols often exclude exploratory or participatory methods, which discourages exploring transdisciplinary research in an ethical way. This shows that academics, research councils, funders, and ethics committees all have to evolve with a changing research landscape that now includes other ways of doing research. With long-term funding, flexible timelines, better-fitting ethics procedures, and policies that value community partnerships could grow significantly and be more effective for everyone in the long run. Practical challenges relate to data ownership, digital literacy, and communication. In transdisciplinary research, there is often a lack of clarity around who manages, who owns, or who interprets data. This uncertainty can create mistrust. As mentioned earlier, digital tools are increasingly being used in research and practice and, when successfully implemented, lead to a Participants testing digital tools during the Citizen Voice workshop in April 2025.