Betri Reykjavík, or Better Reykjavik, is the City of Reykjavik’s online participation platform, based in Reykjavik, Iceland. It was launched in May 2010 by the Icelandic Citizens Foundation and has since become a long-running tool for involving residents in municipal decision-making. The platform was created to collect the views of city residents on local projects and policies, and to give them a direct way to submit ideas, debate proposals, and help set priorities.
The project’s method is straightforward but structured: residents can propose ideas, comment on others’ suggestions, and take part in ranking or prioritising what they consider most important. Over time, the platform has been used for several democratic functions, including agenda setting, participatory budgeting, and policy crowdsourcing. It also includes a debating system and the submission of multimedia content. According to project descriptions from the Citizens Foundation and OECD sources, more recent development has included the use of artificial intelligence to improve the user experience and help process submitted content.
Betri Reykjavík is a co-creation project involving the Citizens Foundation, Reykjavik City, and the city’s residents. Its stated purpose is to narrow the distance between citizens, elected officials, and administrative staff, while increasing participation and trust in local government. The platform is still active and remains one of the best-known civic tech projects in Iceland.
Publicly available project material says that hundreds of ideas have been processed through the agenda-setting function, and that the platform has supported more than 200 citizen-suggested policies. It has also been described as widely used by Reykjavik’s population over the years.