Parliaments are the cornerstones of modern democracies, yet citizens struggle to understand what they do and to monitor their activities. Despite far-reaching open-access data policies, the sheer volume of data parliaments release, and the difficult-to-use interfaces citizens must navigate, mean that citizens see little benefit from these efforts. The potential benefits of increased parliamentary transparency, and the knock-on effects this could have for democratic participation, thus remain unrealised.
Making parliaments more transparent is important because trust in democratic institutions is low (only 50% of respondents were confident in the European Parliament in 2022; Eurostat 2022). Citizens feel disconnected from the politicians who represent them, and the information environment through which they learn about Parliament's activities is flooded with poor-quality content. Part of the solution to these challenges is to increase parliamentary transparency, but current efforts in this regard fall short as the information provided rarely reaches the citizens it is targeted at.
ParliView takes on this challenge by developing an AI-powered transparency tool to help citizens better understand a Parliament's actions. Using generative AI techniques, we transform information from unwieldy parliamentary databases into direct and concise responses to user queries. ParliView makes open-access data about Parliament genuinely accessible to citizens in simple, understandable language, bridging the knowledge gap and improving trust in Parliament. This will empower citizens with clear insights into how their interests are represented by those they elect to Parliament.
This project is supported by the Google.org Impact Challenge: Strengthening Democracy in Europe initiative, with additional support from Research Ireland for the Insight Centre for Data Analytics.
The European Parliament ParliView platform is coming in Spring 2026.
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