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Welcome to the Community of Practice of the Competence Centre on Participatory and Deliberative Democracy!

The Competence Centre on Participatory and Deliberative Democracy aims to respond to the increasing demand from the European Commission, EU institutions and countries for capacity to support participatory and deliberative projects and policies at the EU level.

This web platform aims to support the activities of the Community of Practice by providing a space for sharing experiences and recommendations regarding different methodologies to engage citizens. Moreover, the web platform is itself a place of reflexivity on participatory methodologies and governance. It can also be used as a working space to design citizen participation in science and policy making.

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Featured Content

Public Participation and Deliberative Democracy Festival

Citizen Engagement Navigator

JRC Collab & Makerspace

Cohort on Deliberative Democracy & Citizens’ Assembly

Latest Blog Posts

Citizen engagement and biodiversity protection - the case of wild pollinating insects

Climate and biodiversity crises are among the greatest global threats that we have to confront now and for many decades to come. Even if the consequences will not touch everyone in the same way, many in the research and policy worlds recognise that moving towards more hopeful futures cannot happen without active participation of the wider society. In this post we bring you a summary of several recent projects that the Competence Centre has run focusing on the engagement of citizens in one pressing biodiversity issue: the protection of wild pollinating insects.

Institutionalising co-creation? Challenges and opportunities

Carrying out citizen engagement is not just a matter of taking the decision to do it. Public administrations face difficulties in changing their focus towards more inclusive, collaborative and participatory decision-making. Moreover, such processes not only need to be initiated, but also maintained overtime. Enabling conditions for meaningful citizen engagement have to mature through practice. BiodiverCities offers valuable lessons learnt on challenges as well as solutions.

Citizen Z: Strengthening the participation of young citizens in democratic and civic life

Contemporary political attitudes are characterized by significant political indifference, disengagement from public life, and a decline in political participation, especially among young people, whose level of interest in politics is steadily declining in almost all EU countries. The ‘Citizen Z’ project, which started in November 2022, applies deliberative methods, to both stimulate interest in civic and political life among young people aged 15 to 25 and to involve them in the decision-making process. Special attention is devoted to the intersectionality principle and those groups that are…