Traducción al castellano
AUTUMN SCHOOL ON
CITIZENS’ ASSEMBLIES
Traducción al castellano
Citizens' Assemblies represent a groundbreaking approach to democratic governance. They bring together a diverse group of citizens, randomly selected to reflect the community's demographic makeup, to deliberate on important policy issues. Through a structured process of learning, discussion, and consensus-building, participants produce informed and actionable recommendations. This method enhances democratic legitimacy, fosters civic engagement, and ensures that a wide range of voices are heard in the policy-making process.
The Autumn School on Citizens' Assemblies is an opportunity to gain real-world skills and actionable knowledge to start your deliberative journey. For two days, you will hear from international and local experts on best practices and case studies while working in groups with other professionals and civil servants to make for a collective learning experience.
FIDE is partnering with Deliberativa to organise a new edition of our capacity-building schools. This event is supported by the Barcelona City Council within Barcelona European Capital of Democracy and organized with the collaboration of Platoniq, Red Delib and Ampliando Democracia.
-
In this foundational session, participants will explore the core principles and practical considerations for deciding why and when to implement a Citizens' Assembly. The session will cover the unique strengths of Citizens' Assemblies in addressing complex policy issues, fostering public trust, and enhancing democratic legitimacy.
We will also address the necessary conditions to implement a Citizens' Assembly that upholds quality standards and is well integrated in the decision-making process of the commissioning body.
-
Explore the power and implications of the mandate given to Citizens' Assemblies. This session provides clear information on the trade-offs involved in setting the assembly's agenda.
-
One of the central concepts within deliberative democracy, what makes it so innovative? How to select a representative random sample for Citizen Assemblies? How do I organise a random sortition in practice?
-
Governance has a key role in how different teams and groups communicate with each other during the assembly. It also determines the selection of experts and the provision of information to assembly members. How much governance is enough, and can too much governance become a burden?
-
From information to deliberation. Learn the key methods to bring citizens from wide-ranging discussions to drafting specific recommendations on a policy issue.
-
From preparing and adapting the public administration to ensure the process is understood and the recommendations are fit for purpose to supporting members after the assembly. This final stage is key to maximising the assembly's impact.
-
Communications
Iberian Context
Facilitation
Building the content provision around trade-offs
-
SPEAKERS
-
Co-Founder, Deliberativa
Yago has a degree in Physics. He has previously worked in teaching and on projects in the cultural and technological fields. For the last 12 years he has focused exclusively on citizen democracy projects.He started his career in this field in 2012 working on hybrid digital participation projects in social movements and political parties. From 2015 to 2019 he was directing a democratic innovation lab at the Madrid City Council (Medialab Prado) in coordination with the open government area and the Decide Madrid platform. During those years he was part of the design team and coordinator of the G1000 Madrid and the City Observatory (the first permanent deliberative body).
In 2019 he founded Deliberativa together with Arantxa Mendiharat. In these years they help to design and implement multiple local and regional projects (see list). He has a special interest in transnational deliberation. He has been heavily involved as part of the core design and coordination team in the Future of Europe Conference, the Next Generation European Panels, and the Global Assembly on Climate Emergency (see list).
-
Co-Founder, Deliberativa
Arantxa holds a degree in Political Science from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Bordeaux, France, and a MSc in Cultural Management from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh.She has devoted most of her professional career to the design and management of cultural projects linked to social transformation. She is now mainly dedicated to the co-design and implementation of deliberative processes in the framework of Deliberativa.
She is co-author with Ernesto Ganuza of the book La democracia es posible. Sorteo cívico y deliberación para rescatar el poder de la ciudadanía (2020, Consonni). Member of FIDE – Federation of Innovation in Democracy Europe, Advisory Board.
-
Advisor, Local Citizens' Assemblies
Charley Fiedeldij Dop is advisor at the independent non-profit organisation Bureau Burgerberaad (the Netherlands). This centre of expertise offers support, advice and training for people and organisations working with democratic innovation -and specifically with citizens' assemblies. She helps civil servants and politicians on a local and regional level with how to organize citizens' assemblies with impact; works on knowledge development around this form of deliberative democracy; and coordinates their own trainings and masterclasses around a.o. facilitation and communication.
-
Responsible for Strategic Projects, Subdirectorate of Citizen Participation, Generalitat de Catalunya.
Degree in Sociology, master in public management and postgraduate in urban and environmental policies. During the last 7 years he has promoted deliberative democracy projects in the public sector, being technical coordinator of the Catalan Assembly for Climate Change. Previously he has worked in academia and public governance, as well as in national and international consulting projects in public policy and development cooperation.
-
Professor, New York University
Manuel Arriaga is a professor at New York University, having previously served on the faculty of the University of Cambridge.
Manuel is the author of "Rebooting Democracy: A Citizen's Guide to Reinventing Democracy" (2014) and a co-founder of Fórum dos Cidadãos, the leading organization in Portugal in the field of citizen deliberation.
Additionally, Manuel has served on the board of directors of the Policy Jury Group and Europe's People's Forum as well as a member of the Expert Advisory Group for the OECD's Evaluation Guidelines for Representative Deliberative Processes.
-
Research Officer, FIDE - Europe
In her binational doctoral thesis in political science (JLU Giessen and University of Paris 8), Nabila Abbas examined various participatory models of democracy called for by Tunisian activists during the 2011 Arab revolts. Based on this, she has been working on the analysis of democratic innovations, more specifically citizens' assemblies and councils.For the European Horizon 2020 research project "Phoenix - the rise of citizens for a greener Europe", she created a database providing an overview of the characteristics of the many different forms of citizen participation in Europe and conducted an in-depth analysis of a series of case studies such as climate citizen assemblies in Ireland or public debates in France. She has taught classes on deliberative democracy and citizen participation at the Universities of Sciences Po Paris, Sciences Po Rennes, Paris Est-Créteil, Paris 8 and RWTH Aachen.
-
Jane Suiter is a Professor in the School of Communications, at Dublin City University. Her research focus is on the information environment in the public sphere and in particular on scaling up deliberation and tackling disinformation.
Jane is Director of DCU's Institute for Future Media, Democracy and Society and is PI on H2020 ICT28 Provenance, a multimillion interdisciplinary project to combat disinformation She is also leading a new project on countering COVID-19 disinformation and the potential role of deliberation.
She has been involved with all the Irish deliberative processes as a member of the expert advisory group (CA 2022; Irish Constitutional Convention 2012-2014); as the Senior Research Fellow on the Irish Citizens' Assembly on gender equality (2020-21) and as co-PI on the Irish Citizen Assembly (2016-2018) and as a founder member of We the Citizens (2011), Ireland’s first deliberative experiment. She is a member of the OECD's FutureDemocracy network.
-
Executive Director, FIDE - Europe
Yves worked as a senior researcher in political science at KULeuven and the University of Antwerp and as a guest professor at several other universities in Belgium and France. He was also a visiting researcher at the University of Oxford (UK).As a scholar, he published in major international journals on participation in politics, citizenship, elections and on information processing of elite politicians. From 2018 to 2020 he was the coordinator of the Belgian G1000 organization, a think tank with expertise in the use of sortition and deliberative democracy.
He has acted as an expert amongst others for the European Court of Auditors, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the European Commission, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and a number of local, regional and national governments.
-
Projects Lead, Arantzazulab
Professionally she has developed her experience in various organisations and countries such as Italy, Belgium, Germany, Australia and Spain.She worked at The Australian Centre For Social Innovation where she led and implemented initiatives alongside the Australian government and NGOs co-designing services.
She then joined the Agirre Lehendakaria Center team where, based on the successful case of social transformation in the Basque Country, she applied the centre's methodology for systems change.
She is currently Arantzazulab's Projects Lead, where she designs, coordinates and participates in Democracy Innovation initiatives. She focuses her activity on systems change, activation of innovation ecosystems, collaborative governance and deliberative democracy.
She also collaborates with several universities as a speaker and lecturer.
By training she is a Technical Engineer in Industrial Design from Mondragon University and holds a Master in Product Design from the Polytechnic School of Milan.
-
Senior Project Manager, Democracy X
Mark Hessellund Beanland is a Senior Project Manager at Democracy X, leading projects in participatory and deliberative democracy. One of these is KNOCA (the Knowledge Network on Climate Assemblies), where he coordinates research, facilitates expert knowledge exchange, and supports policymakers in running effective climate assemblies. He was also one of the central organizers of the Conference on the Future of Europe. With a background in organizational leadership and experience as a personal advisor in Danish politics, Mark is committed to democratic innovation and climate action. His work ensures that citizen voices are central to addressing the climate crisis, driving positive change through inclusive processes.
REGISTRATION FORM
SCHoOL PASS
Standard: 415€
Companies, Researchers and Professors, Professionals
Reduced: 250€
NGOs, Students, Civil servants, Administration technical staff
(both prices excl. 21 % VAT)
A limited number of free tickets are available at the discretion of the organiser. We grant these tickets to participants with limited resources and who will implement the skills gained in the school. If you think you are eligible, there is a dedicated question in the registration form to let us know.
The school will be mainly in English, although some workshops will accommodate Spanish and Catalan when necessary.
The ticket includes access to the entire programme, catering during the two days and dinner on Thursday, October 17th.
Maximum capacity: 60 participants
Venue: Canodrom, Barcelona
Registration deadline: Friday, October 5th
Cancellation policy:
Before September 15th: total refund.
Before September 29th: 50% refund.
There will be no refunds given after September 29th.
