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The IDEAL Mobile App is a versatile new tool designed to bring digital deliberation directly to your fingertips. Serving as a seamless bridge between citizens and governance, the app integrates with the core IDEAL Platform to empower users to influence policy from anywhere. By offering a lightweight, user-friendly interface, it ensures that participating in the democratic process is no longer a complex task, but a natural part of your daily digital life. At its heart, the IDE

Democratic participation is expanding across Europe. Yet a persistent question remains unanswered: who is actually in the room? For many people, including newcomers, people with disabilities, and those who do not speak the dominant language of public life, participation is nominally available but practically inaccessible. The barrier is often linguistic, cultural, or a matter of trust. You can open a platform to everyone and still end up with the same voices. This is the prob

On 19 February 2026, the Digital Inclusion Day organised by the Job Center of the Municipality of Athens at the Serafio Cultural Center brought together policymakers, practitioners, innovators and community actors around a crucial question: How visible is democracy to those who are often rendered invisible ,  and how can digital tools help change that? Among the practices presented, the IDEAL project stood out as a concrete, research-based response to the growing need for in

Please share a short biography Dina Zabaneh is a political economist and development researcher specializing in labour market policies, gender relations, and inclusive economic development in the Arab Mediterranean region. She holds a PhD (magna cum laude) in Politics and Gender Relations from Philipps Universität Marburg and a Master’s in Financial Economics from Kingston University London. Her work integrates feminist, institutional, and political economy approaches to addr

In Paris, La Maison des Réfugiés (House of Refugees) is an emblematic space: a resource center dedicated to learning, support, and socio-professional integration. It promotes solidarity and inclusion, while raising awareness about exile and migration, making it the ideal venue for the IDEAL workshop organized by Relais Culture Europe in November 2025. The IDEAL session adopted a cultural and artistic tone, in line with the mission of Relais Culture Europe . The discussion w

Please share a short biography My name is Fabienne Trotte, I am Head of Research, Innovation and Training at Relais Culture Europe, the French Creative Europe Desk. Trained in cultural management and geopolitics, I have developed expertise in European cultural cooperation and public policies. Based in Paris, I have been supporting cultural organisations in designing European projects since the early 2000s. I have worked on EU research and innovation projects such as the Horiz

Today, digital democracy is becoming an important complement – and some would say even an alternative – to offline forms of political participation. Increasingly more people use social media as a news source, debates regularly unfold in comment sections, and protests often start in encrypted chats. The digitalization of public life has upended traditional ways of political engagement. Digital platforms have brought clear democratic advantages: nowadays, information is readily

The IDEAL project added real value to the conversation on digital transformation and collaborative innovation during the Erasmus+ IMMER-CV Final Event. Organized by INNOPAC in Valencia and streamed online, the hybrid conference marked the successful conclusion of IMMER-CV’s 18-month mission to deliver a groundbreaking training curriculum on immersive technologies for the Cultural and Creative Sectors (CCS). Prof. Charalampos Alexopoulos, representing the IDEAL consortium fr

One of the main goals of the IDEAL project is to make the democratic collaboration more accessible to various communities, including those that may have difficulties using the dominant language of the country they reside in. That is why we rely on language technology of  text simplification . It aims to build automatic tools that transform a given text piece -- e.g. a sentence, a paragraph, or a whole document -- into a variant that maintains the meaning of the original, but

IDEAL and MultiPoD organised and online session “ Voices without borders: Empowering citizens to shape tomorrow ” , during the EURegionsWeek Close to You series of events. IDEAL and MultiPoD are European projects designed to strengthen participatory democracy by combining social science expertise with innovative, ethical-by-design AI technologies. Their mission is to break the barriers that prevent millions of citizens from engaging in deliberation and decision-making proce

On 27th November, the IDEAL consortium took an important step towards inclusivity by meeting with Independo , a small but innovative startup dedicated to integrating people with intellectual disabilities into the digital world, therefore helping them be independent. While many large organizations have taken steps in accessibility, for example, Apple’s strong support for blind users, intellectual disabilities often remain ignored. Independo is determined to change this. Their

Please share a short biography I am Assistant Professor at the Institute for Public Management and Governance, WU Vienna University for Economics and Business. With a background in political science, economics and psychology, I am an experienced academic dedicated to exploring how Artificial Intelligence shapes, and is in turn shaped by, the individual actors and groups who design, deploy, and utilise these technologies. Most especially, I consider how advanced technologies c

In the first half of 2025, two of the IDEAL project partners, WU Vienna University of Economics & Business and Caritas Vienna , collaborated for hosting group discussions with beneficiaries from diverse backgrounds in Vienna and Lower Austria. The meetings formed an important part of the project’s groundwork to explore what people living in Austria need to participate more in democratic life. As part of Caritas Vienna “Zusammenreden 2.0” (“Talking together 2.0) meetup series

Deliberation and political participation are fundamental rights that are out of reach for many vulnerable or marginalised groups....

As part of the Horizon IDEAL project, a focus group was held in Athens at the Centro Community Center of IASIS on Thursday, the 26th of...

On May 21st, 2025, Leaders International hosted two workshops in Brussels as part of the Horizon Europe-funded IDEAL Project , which is...

In the rapidly growing digital world of today, we bear witness to the fast-paced development of the digital dimension of the public space...

Democracy is more than just casting a vote on election day. A truly effective democracy thrives when people engage in public debates, use...

Democracy in Europe is undergoing a dynamic transformation as nations and organizations work together to address challenges and reinforce...

In a Europe defined by its rich cultural and linguistic diversity, democracy must be as inclusive as its people. With 24 official...