Accommodating the various requirements from distinct perspectives in e-participation calls for a holistic engineering approach for e-participation systems analysis and design. This paper presents research results towards a reference framework for e-participation projects. An analysis of procedural models for e-participation and enterprise architectures in the context of e-participation shows that a holistic approach is necessary. A sophisticated and holistic engineering approach for e-participation in the form of a reference framework is seen as a solution to support e-participation projects development and implementation. The reference framework consists of different concepts supporting each other: dimensions that build the scope of an e-participation project, a domain meta model, a procedural reference model, and a library with requirements, reference models and building blocks for e-participation.