As we strive to build a more sustainable, inclusive, and prosperous future for Europe, the potential of collective creativity and innovation has never been more crucial. Public spaces, particularly community-oriented grassroots public spaces, play a key role in fostering community engagement and the sharing of experiences and expertise. Moreover, these spaces have the power to inspire more profound and care-oriented forms of societal participation. 

The CC-DEMOS is concluding a new report on public spaces and grassroots participation in democratic life. It argues that by bringing citizens together to co-create solutions to pressing challenges, institutions can tap into the diverse skills, expertise, and passion within communities, empowering citizens to shape a future for Europe that is more inclusive, resilient, and sustainable for them and future generations. Through collaborative approaches, including co-design and prototyping, grassroots public spaces can drive civic participation, entrepreneurship and competitiveness. 

Objectives

This event is organised in collaboration with VULCA (https://vulca.eu/), organisation fostering mobility and collaboration opportunities for designers and creative people in Europe. The event has the following objectives:

• Explore the role of community-oriented grassroots public spaces in inspiring and fostering care-oriented forms of societal participation, driving entrepreneurship, and competitiveness from the ground up.
• Identify and prioritise key areas where community-oriented public spaces can have significant impact in addressing Europe’s pressing challenges, such as climate change or biodiversity decline, digital transformation and technological change, and competitiveness, but also the problems that affect the communities themselves, namely social inequalities, education, health and wellbeing.
• Discuss innovative solutions and strategies to enable citizens to take an active role in shaping the future of Europe, by providing them with the necessary tools, skills, and networks to drive positive change in their own communities.
• Develop a set of recommendations on enablers to foster participation of community-oriented public spaces to participate in democratic life.