Platform Urbanism / Cathair Samhlú is an SFI-funded project that address es a number of key issues within Irish, indeed: Western societies, namely the lack of citizen participation and

the relative absence of data in evidence-based engagement in local discussions and decision-making.

This becomes especially visible in matters pertaining to urban planning and is arguably a key issue shaping the future of Galway. Our goal is to tackle resulting problems by deploying IT-based tools or ‘platforms’ to connect data and citizens in an easily accessible and usable manner. Our goal is to embed emerging processes and practices within a scaled-down version of the ‘citizens’ assembly’ to deliver a data-saturated process to structure local forms of planning-related engagements.