3rd Annual Citizen Engagement and Deliberative Democracy Festival

How is democracy changing? How can citizens participate in this change?

These are the themes of the 3rd Annual Citizen Engagement and Deliberative Democracy Festival.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted societal and policy challenges amid uncertainty. People need solutions that go beyond business-as-usual policy.

Open to all, the Citizen Engagement and Deliberative Democracy Festival is the chance for people of diverse backgrounds to gather and tackle some of the pressing issues of our time.

Joining us this year will be European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, Mariya Gabriel, Vice-Presidents Dubravka Šuica and Věra Jourová as well as JRC Director-General Stephen Quest.

Registration

To enrol, please visit the registration page.

The festival is free and open to all.

Programme

The programme features a variety of events including

• sessions led by the European Commission,
• interactive thematic sessions,
• exhibition of citizen engagement projects and artwork.

Core topics of citizen engagement include

• youth engagement,
• citizen engagement futures,
• challenges in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Participants include representatives from

• the European Commission and other EU institutions,
• national authorities,
• civil society organisations,
• academia,
• youth and the arts,
• the OECD.

Agenda

See the programme here:

Exhibition

Throughout the festival we will be showing a selection of videos that showcase citizen engagement projects around Europe. The projects bring novel approaches to citizen engagement, focused on ideas of deliberation or of co-creation, which can span art, science, and technology.

As part of the exhibition, we will announce a social innovation prize for the project that incorporates the most innovative social approach to citizen engagement.

Call for Experiences

Untill the end of the Festival, 12 December, we will be gathering submissions of stories about the impact of Covid-19 related restrictions on public spaces. We welcome visual and written accounts of experiences and reflections on the ways in which the use and meanings of public spaces have been changing during the pandemic.

Selected submissions will be featured during the Festival. At a later date all submissions will be made available on the JRC's Community of Practice on Citizen Engagement website. More details and submission guidelines can be found here.

On-Demand Sessions

Don't worry if you miss a session. Videos of the sessions will be made available on demand on the EU Academy portal (the same place where you register, find the agenda and the links to enter each session).

Background

This festival will coincide with the adoption of the European Democracy Action Plan. It supports the goal of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to “strengthen the links between people, nations and institutions in Europe” (Political guidelines for the next European Commission 2019-2024, PDF, page 3).

Contact

Email EU-CITIZEN-ENGAGEMENT@ec.europa.eu.

Related Content

European Democracy Action Plan

Political guidelines for the next European Commission 2019-2024, PDF, page 3

Venue

Online, EU