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EUARENAS

EUARENAS

Democracy across Europe has experienced immense challenge, change and uncertainty in recent years (Canal 2014; European Commission & Merkel; 2019) - from the rise of populism to decreasing levels of public trust in governance institutions and processes, to the war in Ukraine. Set against the backdrop of these issues, EUARENAS has been investigating how cities and urban spaces can strengthen legitimacy, identification and engagement within the democratic public sphere. Specifically, EUARENAS has been exploring how participation and deliberation in democracy and decision-making can be increased, and how voices and communities who are excluded from such arenas can be more actively involved.

 

Foresight is one of the research strands present in EUARENAS. In this project, foresight is both a tool for understanding democratic innovations as they emerge, and for engaging citizens and other actors in such innovations within the participatory and deliberative realms. Mixed method approaches to foresight that incorporate a diversity of activities such as media discourse analysis, lived experience storytelling, social media analysis, three horizons mapping, driver-mapping, scenario and visioning exercises and policy stress- testing have been used in EUARENAS to investigate and hypothesise over future trends and scenarios in participatory democracies.

 

From this work, we propose the following recommendations for Cities wanting to strive towards more equitable local democracies:

  1. Address structural barriers to participation
  2. Build relationships of trust
  3. Invest in formal and civic education
  4. Make decisions for the long-term

A more equitable, inclusive local democracy landscape is not too far in the distance for us to conceive it being possible. In fact, the future is now – the seeds to create it are already being planted, they just need nurturing by:

  • Scaling and mainstreaming existing pilot or niche practices that are working locally – whether that beparticipatory budgeting, citizen assemblies or other smaller-scale projects – so that these become thenew ‘status quo’
  • Adopting test and learn approaches to promote experimentation and on-going learning – this will enableongoing innovation and be responsive to society's needs
  • Finding ways to celebrate and connect-up the small changes that are taking place - this will help peoplesee that progress is being made, even when it feels like things are changing too slow

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Is Hydrogen that good for the Climate?

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Albert Norström

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Mar 30, 2022

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Is Hydrogen that good for the Climate?

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Albert Norström

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Hayley Trowbridge

Hayley Trowbridge

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Share your insights! Let the Futures4Europe community know what you are working on and share insights from your foresight research or your foresight project.

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The aim of this study was to serve as one of the inputs to the update and to initiate a discussion on the possibilities of updating the Czech republic 2030 strategy. In order to ensure that this strategic document reflects the dynamic developments on the global and domestic scene, mechanisms for regular reviews and updates of the objectives and measures have been proposed. Given the events of the last 3 years (especially the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine), it is relevant to review the relevance of the assumptions regarding the long-term development of the Czech Republic, which served as the basis for the original wording of the strategic objectives and targeting of the document.The role of České priority was to provide foresight exercises in order to reach two goals:· Assess the relevance of existing goals: the problems and challenges facing society are changing and so are the definition of objectives for further development. The task of this section is therefore also to determine whether the original ČR 2030 goals are still relevant in the context of change and respond to the major challenges that society is facing and will continue to face in the coming decades.· Identify blind spots: there may be issues or opportunities that the document does not cover - i.e. blind spots. The next task of this part of the update is to identify such gaps to increase the comprehensiveness of the document.The project was implemented in the form of workshops, which were attended by experts and representatives of public institutions and ministries. On the basis of pre-prepared scenarios of development, the participants had to identify the resulting challenges, opportunities and areas that have not yet been covered in the CR 2030. The list of these areas was subsequently consulted with representatives of public institutions. These expert consultations were complemented by input from the general public through a creative competition held in September 2022.

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