Research & Evaluation
Want to research participatory budgeting? Or learn how to improve your PB process?
Good research and evaluation can lift the profile of local PB efforts, as well as help identify areas for improvement and growth. It helps us understand the broader impacts of PB on communities and democracy. The growth of PB is helped by consistent, comparable research and data practices.
Key Metrics
We coordinate a North American PB Research Board that has developed best practices for research and data. Together with the Research Board and the nonprofit Public Agenda, we created a set of 16 Key Metrics for researchers and staff to use for evaluating local PB processes.
Additional Research Topics
For researchers looking to conduct focused studies, theses, or class projects on PB, the Research Board has identified a number of outstanding questions that need further research. Interested researchers should consult the list of Priority PB Special Research Projects, which outlines the most pressing needs for understanding and improving PB.
PB Data Sets
While PBP does not have the capacity to track all relevant data on PB, we are able to share a small set of PB Case Study Data on the Case Study page of our website.
Participedia is also a great source for research and data on PB, and the City of Seattle and the City of New York both have open data sets related to their PB on their open data portals: NYC Open Data on PB | Seattle Open Data on PB