Co-designing Waves: Insights from the project so far

August 6, 2025

It has been three months since we launched Waves – the €1 million project to develop and test new AI-powered digital methods to improve local democracy by making it easier, quicker and cheaper to gather views, discuss issues and reach consensus.

This is the first in a series of blogs where we’ll share what we’ve discovered, how our thinking has evolved and what we’re finding challenging as we ride the Waves.

The largest trial of digital democracy in Britain, Waves is a deeply innovative project and one that has been fascinating to play a role in. Our partnership is made up of trailblazing councils, technology innovators and thought leaders – who all bring different perspectives to the challenge of how to strengthen local democracy.

Together with Demos, Camden Council, South Staffordshire District Council, CASM Technology and digital democracy platforms PSi and Remesh, we’ve looked at every aspect of how to co-design and refine the Waves process. From what the user experience should look and feel like, to what makes a good deliberation question, to how we ensure Waves has democratic legitimacy.

We have also convened our first session with the Waves Learning Network, bringing together a cohort of 25 councils to observe and learn from the journey that the Waves pilot councils (Camden and South Staffordshire) are on.

During this online workshop, we explored the on-the-ground realities facing councils as they engage with their communities and the challenges and opportunities that emerge when we embed technology into participation. We also jointly identified and clarified how best to make this Learning Network an effective space for knowledge sharing, peer learning and reflection.

The journey so far: What we’re learning

As the project evolves, we’re uncovering rich learning about the complexities and possibilities of deliberative processes, especially when powered by emerging technologies:

The tech itself is both a catalyst and a challenge: While AI and digital-first approaches make Waves novel, innovative and exciting, they also demand careful attention to inclusion, transparency, data ethics and user experience. If designed effectively, AI-powered digital tools should enable participants to enter a deliberative space feeling better informed and ready to engage. If they’re not designed effectively, they risk being inaccessible and entrenching the digital divide.
Laying the groundwork for collaboration is page-one: The consortium delivering Waves is made up of seven organisations, each with its own specialisms, staff and ways of working. For this to be an impactful and balanced partnership where everyone has the opportunity to contribute, we’ve had to figure out how best to work together. This has included very practical things like understanding internal sign off processes at each organisation, through to grounding the project in a shared vision and principles for collaboration.
How representative is it really? We’ve spent a lot of time grappling with this question, exploring how we can ensure that those involved in the deliberation process are representative of the wider community, how our recruitment and outreach approaches can be designed so that they’re accessible to a range of demographics, including those who are the least heard, and how democratic legitimacy might be rooted as much in who takes part as in what comes out of the process.

Designing in the real world: What we’re navigating

Designing a scalable, tech-enabled deliberative process within real-world systems – across councils, partners and communities – brings with it a set of complex, often intersecting challenges and opportunities. We will continue to explore these stretch points – where our ambitions meet the realities of delivery – as we build and test Waves:

Balancing project ambition with local realities: One of the core tensions we’re navigating is how to design Waves as a scalable model that can be adopted by many councils, while also responding meaningfully to the specific needs of the two pilot councils. Every council brings its own values and priorities to participation, operates under its own constitution, with different rules (for example, around data sharing) and ways of working affecting how Waves might be applied in practice. This has to be accommodated within a replicable and adaptable model.
Centring the resident experience: We’re also focused on the differing experiences of residents who engage in the deeper, more time-intensive elements of Waves versus those whose participation is more light-touch (for example, those who share their ideas on the digital platform or provide feedback on the proposals of those who have taken part in the deep deliberation) and those who don’t engage at all. This raises important questions about the process itself – do people feel more agency through deliberation? Do they have greater trust in the outcome? – and about the relationship between participants and the wider public, especially as the latter will be impacted by a policy they have only lightly inputted into or perhaps didn’t help shape at all.
Harmonising the interplay between technology and humans: While technology offers powerful capabilities, it also has limitations. Aspects of participation must remain deeply human – such as peer learning and connection between participants. We’re exploring how we can best use technology to support and enhance rather than overpower or replace these experiences.
Recognising trade-offs: We’re working to design a process that meets the goals of being fast and cost-effective, while ensuring quality and allowing enough space to move slowly, reflect and learn as we go. Although not mutually exclusive, these goals can be in tension with one another and have to be carefully balanced.

The next chapter: Where we’re headed

We will soon get underway with our first trial of the Waves process, building in what we’ve learnt so far. Ahead of starting in the Autumn, Camden Council is in the process of finalising the details of its end-to-end deliberation on adult social care that will unlock a population wide conversation, both with people who already draw on care as well as those who don’t – to make social care something which is everyone’s business. We will share updates from the trial in our next Waves Learning Network session on 3 December. If you would like to join us, register here.

We’ll also be sharing more content that delves into themes at the heart of this work, sharing insights from councils that are approaching participatory and deliberative democracy in new and interesting ways. Sign up to our newsletter to have these sent straight to your inbox.

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