Policy Kitchen is a policy crowdsourcing methodology developed by foraus – Swiss Forum on Foreign Policy. It enables a diverse network of thinkers to find creative policy recipes to pressing foreign policy challenges. The methodology is built on a crowd innovation platform, physical workshops, and a support process to bring the best recipes to impact.
Policy Kitchen is public and allows for bottom-up participation in the political process. Any person, irrespective of background or location, can participate and contribute ideas. To ensure a high level of expertise, we partner with experts and professionals of various sectors (e.g. science, government, international organizations, NPO, business). Collaborations with the Open Think Tank Network and other partners allow us to scale participation internationally.
The code for Policy Kitchen is made available as open source software. We encourage and support other actors in using participative methods in their respective domains. Contact us, we are happy to help.
Since its launch in September 2018, more than 15 challenges have been carried out. Over 1000 people from four continents have participated and have shared their valuable ideas.
The highlights are:
- A pilot challenge on biodiversity. The corresponding paper was published in autumn 2019, followed by a stakeholder event attended by high-profile panelists in Bern.
- The global challenge on «Inclusion in Artificial Intelligence», with workshops in 8 countries and a presentation at the AI for Good Global Summit. Results were published in a paper in autumn 2019 and presented at a multi-stakeholder event in Geneva.
- The list of demands on European digitisation policy developed by Policy Kitchen which was published by Polis180 and Ponto in spring 2019. They were further discussed with high-profile panelists in Berlin.
The Policy Kitchen Community consists of people from different interesting job sectors. Politicians, scientific experts, government officers, students and many more have come together to create better policies. Not only do they come from various sectors, but they are also people from all over the world and from varying generations.
We offer tools and many years of experience in participative processes – from physical workshops to international online communities. We are happy to support you in the conception and implementation of your participatory process. You can find our offer and references here. We look forward to hearing from you via this email.
We are celebrating 2 years of Policy Kitchen!
For this occasion, we’re happy to share our anniversary publication detailing the Policy Kitchen story, our learnings from various participatory processes, interviews and more.
We are also proud to release the Policy Kitchen App, available in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store! This allows our users to create, share and discuss their ideas wherever they are. We have also improved the Policy Kitchen website with a new design, real-time collaborative text and more.
Furthermore, we have created a video explaining the Policy Kitchen approach and officially launched Policy Kitchen as a service.
Finally, the first ever Policy Kitchen Open Night is taking place on the 14th of December 2020. Everyone is invited to join and bombard the Policy Kitchen team with their questions. The Open Night is also a unique opportunity to connect with likeminded people and discuss participatory policy making.
Policy Kitchen is supported by Engagement Migros.
