As Europe is going through a housing crisis, the need for innovative, inclusive, and sustainable solutions has never been more urgent. This critical challenge took center stage in Brussels on June 11, 2026, during the 14th edition of the EU Design Day, a key satellite event of the New European Bauhaus (NEB) Festival. Organized by the European Regions Research and Innovation Network (ERRIN), the event was entitled NEB as a game changer: Rethinking affordable living, housing po

Finding affordable, quality student housing is a universal challenge across Europe making it the perfect real-world issue to test out new civic technology. On June 10th, the IDEAL project brought this topic to the table during a specialized 90-minute workshop in Dijon, France. Facilitated by Fabienne Trotte from Relais Culture Europe (a member of the IDEAL consortium), the session put the IDEAL digital platform and mobile application directly into the hands of the people it i

Navigating government bureaucracy can often feel like wandering through a maze. Between paper requirements, confusing portals, and fragmented departments, citizens frequently struggle to access basic services. Early this May, Leaders International, acting as the Belgian pilot partner for the IDEAL project, took a major step toward finding innovative solution for this issue by hosting an innovative pilot meeting. The core of the event was a Mapping Lab: a collaborative space w

In Austria, our partner Caritas Vienna successfully started their women dialogue groups last month. Small groups of women, mainly Dari and Arabic speakers, meet every two weeks to discuss topics of interest and test the IDEAL platform and app. The first meeting was all about getting to know each other and sharing life stories filled with strength and inspiration as well as a first touchpoint with the IDEAL tools. The second meeting centered around challenges in finding a jo

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

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

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

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

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....