November 2001: The Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg performed a public online debate concerning the topic "quality and evaluation of the lecture at the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg". All students and teachers of the TU-Harburg were invited to discuss online for a period of six weeks. Although the trial was primary intended to test the techniques and methods of the platform, 228 users registered and wrote nearly 1,200 contributions. Therefore, the discussion developed to a much larger extent than the initiators had expected before.
Furthermore, the platform and method were able to impressively demonstrate their suitability for goal-oriented large-scale online discourses.

January / February 2002: The City of Bologna initiated a public online discussion with regard to the topic "Traffic in Bologna". All members of the city network "Iperbole Civic Network" were invited to take part in this discourse that lasted for six weeks and was intended to work out suggestions on how to improve the traffic situation in Bologna. Actually, 362 registered users wrote 713 contributions and worked out several interesting and realistic ideas providing new perspectives to the local administration. Again, the system and methodology were able to prove clearly their attractiveness and ability to successfully perform a goal-oriented large-scale discourse.

November 2002: The City of Hamburg performed a public online discussion and competition of ideas concerning the topic "Metropolis Hamburg - Growing City". The citizens of Hamburg were invited to develop own ideas on how to improve the attractiveness and living conditions of the City of Hamburg. In the four weeks of discussion 540 registered users wrote nearly 4,000 contributions forming 57 detailed concepts with regard to several important urban aspects. An expert jury rewarded 7 ideas and recommended them to the senate of Hamburg in order to translate them into action. Both, with respect to the integration into the policy process and with respect to the marketing activity, the DEMOS online discussion about the Leitbild Growing City is still at the forefront of e-democracy experiments in Europe. Following, the City of Hamburg recommended DEMOS and its suitability for e-participation for the German IT strategy "DeutschlandOnline".

February 2003: The City of Bologna used the DEMOS platform for an exclusive expert discussion of the topic "Immigration and Integration in Bologna". In the three weeks of discussion internal and external experts invited and members of the local administration were exclusively allowed to write contributions actively. Although the extent of this discourse (59 registered participants wrote 92 contributions) cannot be compared to previous DEMOS discussions, it proved to be well suited for an intensive and exclusive exchange of experts as well.

October / November 2005: Familienfreundlicher Wohnort Hamburg - Online discussion concerned with family friendly living and housing in the city of Hamburg. The objectives of this public consultation were to collect citizen opinions about the current state of Hamburg’s family friendliness and to develop concrete proposals on how to improve the housing situation for families with children. Furthermore, it was intended to involve all different stakeholders like citizens, owner, planner, architects and politicians in a discussion about family and housing in the city of Hamburg in order to increase Hamburg’s attractiveness. This DEMOS discussion took place from October 17th to November 12th – an interdisciplinary working group with representatives of the municipalities (Bezirke), the city-state ministries and TuTech Innovation had already been set up in April 2005. For more information see http://www.familenleben-hamburg.de/

January 2006: BioTalk. Online discussion about genetically modified food with pupils, teenagers and adolescents. This project was conducted in cooperation with Hamburg’s Ministry of Education and the University of Hamburg and was partly funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The project started in April 2005 and ended in March 2006. For more information see http://www.biotalk.de/

Spring 2006: Hamburg’s Citizens Dialogue. The parliament of the city-state of Hamburg decided to use DEMOS to discuss the city’s budget and financial policy with citizens. The first step was to inform the local public about the basic functionality of public budgeting and the specific conditions of Hamburg’s financial situation. The objectives of this discourse were to involve the citizens in financial planning, to learn more about the citizens’ priorities and to identify saving opportunities. The project started by the beginning of 2006; the active phase of the discourse ended by 12th May 2006. See http://www.hamburg-haushalt.de/>

In the course of the four week lasting discussion almost 3,000 citizens registered, approx. 50,000 visitors have been counted. Also experts, politicians and VIPs have participated actively. The media coverage of the e-participation project was remarkable: Almost all regional news paper, radio & TV stations reported about the moderated online discourse. But also on a national level many news papers and magazines covered the event, among them the online edition of the internationally well known magazine "Der Spiegel" and the print edition of the weekly paper "Die Zeit".

May 2006: Family Portal Munich. This online discussion forum concerned with the questions "what’s good for children and families in Munich?" and "what need to be improved in Munich?". In a first phase (10-14.05.2006), citizens and stakeholders could allegorise their experiences within the family issue in Munich and give their advice on improvements. In a second phase (15-28.05.2006), the individual topics were discussed in special forums. Specifically, the forums were

–    "living in Munich",

–    "parents’ letters",

–    an initiative from the Munich youth welfare office,

–    "childcare",

–    "childcare and education",

–    "educational counselling",

–    "family & health" and

–    "playing in the city".

At the end of the second phase all results were summarised. In a third phase (29-31.05.2006) the results were discussed and ideas were evaluated (ranking). The final results will be incorporated in the revision of the children and family policy guideline for Munich in 2007. Up to now, more than 200 users are registered in the forum. See http://familie.portal.muenchen.de/