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EUARENAS investigates the ways in which social movements coupled with local government reform initiatives, manifest themselves in local-level experiments and create momentum for political change.
In other words, the project responds to a major European challenge – the need to strengthen legitimacy, identification and engagement within the democratic public sphere.
EUARENAS is a Horizon2020 project. It looks at different ways and means to include citizens into municipality-level decision making through the use of different participatory mechanisms and tools, tackling contemporary challenges of cities.
The project includes municipalities from four pilot cities: Voru, Gdansk, Budapest and Reggio Emilia, as well as a number of organisations and universities from other European countries.
The preparatory phase of the WP has already started with CRN and Eutropian conducting bilateral interviews with the pilot cities in an effort to understand the local contexts, needs and challenges of cities, respectively. Conclusions of these talks were presented at the EUARENAS consortium meeting, along with a workshop that aimed to further explore some of the potential needs, issues and challenges regarding the pilots with consortium partners. Preparations of the pilot projects will continue throughout 2021 and respective projects of cities will be launched during the first half of 2022. Stay tuned for further info on this.
Eutropian builds on its knowledge of public-civic participation and governance mechanisms in matters of urban development and co-designed services. Eutropian also has experience in designing knowledge exchange and learning programs, as well as facilitating public-civic cooperation processes. Based on this expertise, Eutropian will be involved in all WPs, with more substantial work on Case Study research (WP3), supporting Pilot Projects (WP4) and the Knowledge exchange design (WP6).
EUARENAS aims to meet nine unique objectives, which will help foster and promote civic engagement and political change. These are:
1-Better understand challenges to democratic cultures and factors influencing local responses to these challenges.
2-Investigate the ways in which innovative and experimental governance practices emerge as well as the main actors, actor groups and strategies involved
3-Assess the potentials of different participatory mechanisms as models for renewing and improving the European public sphere
4-Assess and facilitate through design thinking and collaborative methods learning processes involved in developing experimental governance
5-Understand how local-level democratic innovation addresses power asymmetries and needs of more vulnerable groups
6-Assess the contributions of locally-based procedural and distributive justice to strengthening participatory and inclusive governance
7-Contribute to new conceptual and comparative frameworks of participative-deliberative democracy
8-Methodological advances, elaboration of methods and tools for transferring governance innovation practices
9-Elaborate policy options for strengthening inclusive governance and for bridging discrepancies and trade-offs between participative and deliberative governance modes.
The Toolbox of Experimental Participatory Methods produced by Eutropian is a comprehensive resource designed to democratise decision-making by harnessing the power of participatory democracy tools. This toolbox responds to a major European challenge: the need to strengthen legitimacy, identification and engagement within the democratic public sphere. It investigates the ways in which social movements coupled with local government reform initiatives manifesting themselves in local-level experiments, create momentum for political change that include more inclusive and participatory forms of governance.
THE TOOLBOX AIMS TO:
Transfer and innovate existing methods from Europe, ensuring inclusivity and accessibility in governance processes. Offer tangible solutions, addressing the exclusion of marginalised voices, extending the circle of actors involved in decision-making. Provide public authorities and civic stakeholders with practical tools, case studies, and best practices, promoting a culture of participation. Foster a mindset of exploration and learning, catering to both experienced practitioners and newcomers. Support the promotion of binding decision-making processes for a moreEUARENAS, a project funded by Horizon2020 and carried out in a number of cities, with a wide range of partners. EUARENAS looks at different ways and means to include citizens into municipality-level decision making through the use of different participatory mechanisms and tools, tackling contemporary challenges of cities. The project includes municipalities from four pilot cities: Voru, Gdansk, Budapest and Reggio Emilia, as well as a number of other organisations and universities from other European countries.
For more information on the project, don’t be shy, reach out to project leader Daniella Patti.
