On March 6 and 7, Prof. Doris Fuchs takes part in the kick-off event of the research project INCITE-DEM in Lisbon. The project, in which the ZIN spokesperson is leading a sub-project together with Prof. Oliver Treib and Prof. Bernd Schlipphak, is supported by the Horizon Programme of the EU and will run in the period March 2023 - February 2026.

The challenges of the transforming world test the capacity of our democracies in terms of democratic participation, political trust, and societal consensus. Citizen participation and co-creation processes are critical to support representative democracy processes and improve the quality of political decisions.

New Horizon project INCITE-DEM aims at enhancing inclusive participation and civic engagement, while expanding democratic innovation and dynamic feedback mechanisms between citizens and institutional actors in representative democracies. Based on research, the project will experiment with inclusive design processes for democratic innovation in practice, by setting up so called democracy labs in 6 countries. Experiences and research will be translated into specific policy guidance and strategic policy roadmaps for a sustainable, inclusive, and innovative democracy in a world in transformation.

Today's political, economic, and societal problems challenge the capacity of democracies in terms of democratic participation, political trust, and societal consensus. But the problems have not appeared over night: over the last twenty years, we have witnessed an increasing public support of populist actors, resulting in a democratic recession. Thus, we need to foster a democracy that ensures all citizens feel represented and able to effectively decide about their shared futures. An open dialogue between citizens, with a diversity of interests, aspirations and needs, and their democratic leaders is fundamental. Citizen participation and co-creation processes are critical to support representative democracy processes and improve the quality of political decisions. Still, there are only fragmentary solutions in place to ensure respectful and informed dialogues and feedback mechanisms between citizens, and traditional institutions of representative democracy.

Against this backdrop, INCITE-DEM project aims at enhancing inclusive participation and civic engagement, while expanding democratic innovation and dynamic feedback mechanisms between citizens and institutional actors in representative democracies. This goal is driven by the ambition to empower citizens, increase political trust, raise satisfaction with democracy and societal cohesion, thus shape the future of democracy in a world in transformation.

To achieve to this goal, INCITE-DEM will first produce a systematic historical review of participation and engagement in democratic life. In the next step, it will try to understand the key conditions for inclusive political participation and civic engagement in democratic life, based on a comparison of current trends in Europe and building on 15 case studies of participation and engagement. The project will then model the dynamics of trust, polarisation, and consensus-building and co-design into an agent-based policy tool for reflexive dialogue, which will implement 8 social simulations of the dynamics of trust building and polarisation/consensus for different policymaking contexts. In its core, the project will experiment with inclusive design processes for democratic innovation in practice, by setting up so called democracy labs as experimental generative (co-creation) spaces in 6 countries (Germany, Norway, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Slovenia). Next, the project will evaluate democratic innovations in order to be able to develop specific policy guidance and strategic policy roadmaps for a sustainable, inclusive, and innovative democracy in a world in transformation. Finally, INCITE-DEM will showcase its results to a variety of relevant stakeholders, helping them to integrate project's outcomes into their practices and work.

INCITE-DEM is implemented by 10 partners from 9 different countries. The consortium is led by Portuguese FCiências.ID - Associacão para a Investigacão e Desenvolvimento de Ciências, while other partners are University of Muenster (Germany), Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Norway), University of Groningen (Netherlands), University of Helsinki (Finland), Tallinn University (Estonia), Instituto de Ciências Sociais -University of Lisbon (Portugal), Asociacion Eco-Union (Spain), Focus Association for Sustainable Development (Slovenia) and Kyoto Club (Italy).