Title
Advisory Group
Advisory Group to the Community of Practice on Participatory and Deliberative Democracy
As of 1 January 2026, the Competence Centre introduces a 7-member Advisory Group (AG) as a new collaborative mechanism for the Community of Practice. The Advisory Group will broaden the CoP’s presence in the activities of the CC-DEMOS through reflections on current priorities, activities and new initiatives.
Objectives
- Inspire and mobilise existing CoP capacities, initiate and oversee regular exchanges within the CoP to broaden its interactions and collaborations with CC-DEMOS, including on research topics, methodologies, and democratic innovations.
- Offer reflexive insights and feedback on the work of the CC-DEMOS, overseeing suggesting the most efficient pathways for such work to reach the CoP, and help inspire new directions for research and collaboration.
- Scope Gather, through interaction with the CoP, for emerging ideas, approaches and capacities from the fields of practice on citizen participation and deliberative democracy, as well as from scholarly disciplines, research and latest participation and deliberation practices.
- Support CC-DEMOS own outreach globally by leveraging AG members’ channels, professional and knowledge networks.
Membership
The AG consists of seven members – practitioners, scholars, and citizens. Members join the AG in a personal capacity – they act independently of, and do not represent, any interest or organisation to which they may be affiliated. The members have a mandate of 18 months and can be re-invited once for another 18 months in succession. Membership in the AG is not remunerated.
Members (1 January 2026 – 30 June 2027)
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Adriana O'PhelanAdriana is a democratic practitioner working at the intersection of science, policy, and society. She builds capacity for authentic collaboration, learning and action to advance low-impact, creative, and democratic futures - futures fueled by the power and agency of people. With a background spanning public policy and governance, culture and creativity, and mission-derived innovation, she has worked across Europe to design and lead systemic transformative processes. Since 2021, Adriana has contributed to Democratic Society’s mission, becoming Interim Director of Strategy in 2025 and previously leading the work to support the EU Cities Mission. Her academic background includes Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability, International Relations, Transitions, and Engineering. She also supports grassroots initiatives such as SuperCafoutch, Eixarcolant, Petites Cantines, and Tiers-Lab des Transitions, always committed to walking alongside those building new paths (as they are created), not just talking about them. -
Dominik HierlemannDominik Hierlemann is a Senior Advisor at the Bertelsmann Stiftung, Germany. He has designed and organized pioneering citizen participation projects in cooperation with the German ministries and the European Commission. Also, he facilitated large-scale events with the German Chancellor, the Federal President and various European Commissioners. Dominik is a political scientist with a master’s in public policy (MSc) and a doctoral degree (PhD) in Social Sciences. He studied at the University of Konstanz, Germany, and at the Institut d'études politiques in Aix-en-Provence, France. For several years he researched and worked in Krakow, Poland, and in Sydney, Australia -
Knud Arne NielsenKnud Arne Nielsen, born in Denmark in 1945, began his career in grassroots activism before serving as secretary of a socialist party. With a background in cultural sociology, he has held a range of senior communication and publishing roles, including positions at Copenhagen City Hall, the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, the Nordic Council of Ministers, Munksgaard Publishers, and the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration. A consistent theme throughout his career has been a commitment to transparent communication and active citizen involvement - ensuring that people are included in the work of public authorities thereby strengthening democratic participation. -
Melisa RossDr. Melisa Ross is researcher at the University of Bremen, Co-Lead of the Global Citizens’ Assembly Network, and Co-Chair of the Standing Group of Democratic Innovations at the European Consortium for Political Research. She received her PhD from Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany (2022). In the past, she conducted research at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center and Public Agenda, and co-authored the evaluation of the Global Assembly. My research spans contemporary politics, citizen participation, deliberation, and democratic innovations, especially at the regional and transnational level in Europe and Latin America -
Roberto FalangaRoberto Falanga is an Assistant Research Professor at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon (ICS). His research focuses on civic participation in public decision-making processes and its role in democratic innovation. He has published internationally on participatory budgeting, community engagement in urban planning and regeneration, and the evaluation of participatory processes. More recently, he has contributed to establishing a historical framing of democratic innovations in Europe.He currently coordinates the project "Democratic Innovations in Portugal", in partnership with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, which will provide an open database of these practices from the 1974 Revolution to the present day. At ICS, he is Principal Investigator of three EU-funded projects broadly related to inclusive participation and its role in sustainable policies - INCITE-DEM, INSPIRE, and INFRABLUE.Alongside his engaged research, he has collaborated with public bodies at multiple levels on topics related to citizen participation and deliberation and he is producing an open podcast on Democratic Innovations, featuring international speakers discussing pressing issues for effective participation in democratic systems. -
Sonia BussuDr Sonia Bussu is Associate Professor in Public Policy at the University of Birmingham. Her research explores participatory governance, democratic innovation, and youth engagement, with a particular interest in embedding inclusive practices in policymaking. She has published widely, including the co-edited volume Reclaiming Participatory Governance and influential articles on democracy-driven governance and participatory assemblages. Sonia currently co-leads the Horizon Europe INSPIRE project, a multi-country initiative that co-designs participatory processes with marginalised groups, focusing on intersectional inclusion and embeddedness. Her work combines conceptual development with applied research, contributing to debates on democratic resilience and resistance. -
Yves DejaeghereYves Dejaeghere is the executive director of the Federation for Innovation in Democracy Europe.He worked as a senior researcher in political science at KULeuven and the University of Antwerp and as a guest professor at several other universities in Belgium and France. He was also a visiting researcher at the University of Oxford (UK). He still is a guest Professor at KULeuven lecturing on “Challenges in 21st century Democracies".As a scholar, he published in major international journals on participation in politics, citizenship, elections and on information processing of elite politicians. From 2018 to 2020 he was the coordinator of the Belgian G1000 organization, a think tank with expertise in the use of sortition and deliberative democracy. Some of the leading projects he did in this role were the coordination of the expert group designing the law for the first permanent citizen assembly linked to a parliament in the German-Speaking Region of Belgium (the so-called Ostbelgien Model). He acted in the same capacity for the City of Paris to design their permanent Citizen Assembly and is still a “Guarant” for that process.He has acted as an expert amongst others for the European Court of Auditors, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the European Commission, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and a number of local, regional and national governments.