Demos is leading the largest trial of digital democracy in Britain.
Waves is a €1 million, two year project to build and test a new model for participatory local democracy powered by civic tech and AI. Our mission is to make it easier, cheaper and faster for governments to involve people both at scale and in depth to tackle contentious local issues and strengthen trust in local government. Thousands of people will have the opportunity to shape local government policy on an issue affecting their area.
Waves is being delivered by a coalition of partners, including New Local, a think tank and network of forward-thinking councils; and digital democracy innovators CrownShy and Dembrane.
For more information about how we use technology in the Waves process, see here.
We are working in partnership with two trailblazing councils who are both embracing the opportunity to put the public at the heart of their policy making. The first trial took place in the London Borough of Camden to co-develop an approach to adult social care. We are now running the second pilot with South Staffordshire Council as they develop an inclusive engagement process to prepare for their next Local Plan. The partners will also support a network of more councils to discuss and learn from the process so they can use the model in the future.
You can see our model for engaging people at scale and in depth here: 
Trust in politics and politicians is in crisis. Only 24% of people trust politicians to make decisions in the best interests of the country. Polarisation is increasing. At the same time, people want to be involved in the public policy decisions that affect them.
As a result, local councils struggle to meaningfully engage local citizens in the decisions that affect their lives, while communities are increasingly self-organising on Facebook and Whatsapp groups. This leaves a democratic gulf between local councils and their communities that this project is seeking to bridge. Demos’s work on Low Traffic Neighbourhoods identified this ‘democratic chasm’.
Participatory democracy is one answer to this challenge – finding ways for people impacted by an issue to work with local and national politicians and experts to understand the problem and develop solutions together. Methods like Citizens’ Assemblies are powerful but can be prohibitively expensive for governments to use which means that doing democracy differently isn’t mainstreamed. Civic tech platforms offer a way for more people to get involved but don’t bring people together to work through the difficult trade offs and find consensus.
Waves is a new model for doing democracy differently that integrates digital tools and AI to enable participation both at scale and in depth. By simplifying the process and bringing down the costs, more people can play an active role in the policy decisions that affect their lives, local governments can hear directly from their residents and develop policies that work better for people.
We want to make doing democracy differently business as usual.
Waves was funded by Google.org in 2024.
To follow our journey, you can see our past updates here, and sign-up to future updates via our Waves contact list.
If you’re a Council that would like to join the Learning Network – contact New Local by clicking on this link.
If you live in Camden, you can find more information about the Waves trial in your borough here.
If you live in South Staffordshire, you can find more information about the Waves trial in your borough here.
For our Who Cares? Data Privacy and AI Ethics policy, see here.
If you have any other question about Waves, contact us at: [email protected]