The Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag (TAB) had examined developments in the petitions system and the introduction of electronic petition systems in a comprehensive study (TAB 2008). One of the research gaps identified was that no representative data was available for Germany on how well the right to petition and the institutions of the petition system are known, what their public standing is, and to what extent the right to petition is exercised. To close this gap, a corresponding study was carried out as part of the TA project ‘Public electronic petitions and civic participation’. The TAB background paper, which documents the findings, provides data on the petition system in Germany for the first time, based on a representative population survey.