GSS EU Science Funding Gateway

Major challenges to civic participation include engaging the disenfranchised, structurally marginalised, or less spontaneously engaged parts of society, and channelling protest into non-conflictual, constructive engagement. Reaching out to them and ensuring that their voices are heard and listened to in the democratic debate, is key to guarantee the fairness and inclusiveness of our political systems.

Proposals should include a specific focus on inequalities in civic participation, including ethnicity, gender, intersectionalities and digital divides, and explore and propose remedies. They should examine how civic participation and co-creation in its various forms, including social activism and social innovation, articulates with the traditional mechanisms and institutions of representative democracy, including acting outside them. Proposals should reflect on the potential of digitalisation and new ICT for enhancing citizen participation, including for public policy making processes. They should propose ways to improve the interaction between policymakers and citizens to enhance the public sphere, including robust and transparent mutual feedback between policymakers and citizens. Proposals are encouraged to include experimental research and design thinking to test the insights gathered and to deploy innovative solutions to demonstrate the solutions proposed. Social innovation might be also considered by proposals if solutions require social change, new social practices or social ownerships.