Our colleague, Lukács Hayes, travelled to Berlin last week to take part in the latest EUARENAS consortium meeting. Consortium members met with experts making up the Community of Practice of the project to discuss issues related to the conceptualisation of deliberative democracy as well as practical aspects related to the pilot participatory processes. Experts, from the fields of local administration, academia and the civic sector working on participation and deliberative democracy provided feedback on the project as a whole and provided suggestions for improving processes and deliverables based on their vast knowledge.

The consortium meeting in Berlin was held in conjunction with Democracy Action Day, organised by the project’s local partner, Comparative Research Network, where consortium and CoP members, as well as local residents, participatory experts, professionals and policymakers took part and shared experiences. Together, participants in groups were tasked to imagine, discuss and construct different future scenarios of an urban environment, with the view of environmental and social sustainability, and community functionality.