Amid historically low levels of trust in national governments throughout OECD nations, South Korea and the EU are pioneering participatory reforms that signal a shift toward more inclusive, citizen‑centred governance. The KEY report Democratic Participatory Experiments maps the strengths, limits and distinctive features of each region’s participatory ecosystem – from compulsory budgeting and citizens’ assemblies in Korea to the EU’s multi‑level digital petitions and transnational panels.

Last month the European Commission held a High-Level Event on Democracy, bringing together representatives from Member States and EU institutions, as well as stakeholders active on democratic innovation and building democratic resilience.

The field of democratic innovation has grown in recent years. There are now more initiatives than ever before around Europe to involve people in decisions that affect them. Alongside this, there is increasing recognition that just giving people the opportunity to have a say is not enough.

On 11 June 2026, the European Policy Centre (EPC) organised an online Policy Lab on the link between participatory and deliberative approaches and wellbeing. The message was clear: participatory processes are a key element of wellbeing governance. However, to be effective, they must be embedded in governance structures, linked to policymaking, adequately resourced, and accompanied by clear accountability mechanisms.

On 22-23 June 2026 the European Commission held a civic tech hackathon to support innovation for a more connected, effective and meaningful ecosystem for citizen participation. The hackathon, a specific deliverable of the European Democracy Shield, also contributed towards building a genuine European civic tech community and to the development of a new Civic Tech Hub.

Launched on January 2024, the overarching objective of the EU-funded project EU-CIEMBLY is to identify and address patterns of exclusion from citizens’ assemblies as democratic innovations. It does so through the adoption and application of intersectionality as an analytical lens for understanding and overcoming structural marginalisation. This Blog Post provides the main highlights of the project so far.

After 6 months of learning and deliberations, members of the Young Citizens Assembly on Pollinators delivered their recommendations on reversing the decline of pollinating insects. They also developed a statement on the place of young people in governance, with a proposal for a permanent Young Citizens Assembly on Biodiversity. But this is not the end of the road!

When discussing democracy, public debates often focus on the political behaviour of young people, particular professional groups, or marginalised actors who stand out because of political extremism. Far less attention is paid to the democratic mechanisms of participation and representation in connection with migration – whether concerning labour migrants, economic migrants, or people displaced by war.

We look back at the CC-DEMOS milestones for 2025 and take a look at the year to come, including support for EU Member States and the Festival 2026.

A year ago, this blog introduced ScaleDem as a Horizon Europe project asking a simple question: why do so many promising democratic innovations stay small?