About

The multiple environmental, economic and social crises of our world in transformation test the capacity of our societies to ensure democratic participation, build political trust, and create societal consensus. Citizen participation and co-creation processes are therefore critical to support representative democracy processes and improve the quality of political decisions. The EU-funded project ‘INCITE-DEM : Citizens Reinventing Democracy’ aims at enhancing inclusive participation and civic engagement, while expanding democratic innovation and dynamic feedback mechanisms between citizens and institutional actors in Europe. Based on high quality research, the project will experiment with inclusive design processes for democratic innovation in practice by setting up Democracy labs in 6 European 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.

INCITE-DEM is implemented by 10 partners from 9 different countries. The consortium is led by Portuguese FCiências.ID from Lisboa University, while other partners are University of Münster WESTFAELISCHE WILHELMS (Germany), Norwegian University of Science and Technology – NTNU ( (Norway), University of Groningen (Netherlands), University of Helsinki (Finland), Tallinn University (Estonia), Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon (Portugal), ECO-UNION (Spain), Focus Association for Sustainable Development (Slovenia) and Kyoto Club (Italy).

The project is supported by the Horizon programme of the EU and it runs March 2023 –February 2026. 

European Commission project officers:

• Nora Allavoine

• Samuela Caramica