Democratic culture: engaging youth and children

Technological change and economic globalisation are reshaping how our societies work—transforming economies, social relations and institutions, while exposing democracies to disinformation, polarisation, and declining trust. Liberal democracies need a renewed social contract that strengthens institutional performance, deepens citizen participation, revitalises democratic culture, and reinforces community bonds through collaborative, participatory governance.

Engaging young people is central to this renewal. City of Bilbao, alongside a wider Basque ecosystem led by Arantzazulab, is prioritising youth engagement to rebuild trust, strengthen democratic values, and empower the next generation to co-create more just, sustainable, and democratic communities.

In the Democracy Lab in Bilbao, we will focus on three themes:

1. Strengthening democratic values with young people: embedding collaborative governance and open government principles and renewing shared responsibility, trust, and reciprocity, including how technology can help sustain and transmit these values.
2. Building democratic culture: developing civic knowledge and the skills, mindsets, and capabilities needed for collaboration and change (e.g., relationship-building, experimentation, and leadership), and creating the infrastructures and spaces where children and youth can learn and practise democracy.
3. Experimenting with new technologies: designing analogue and especially digital tools that empower participation; adapting institutional language, rules and workflows to youth realities; leveraging AI and platforms to communicate on youth channels, gather inputs, and run credible processes that ensure real impact.

How it works

Democracy Lab serves as a dedicated space for local government officials and democracy practitioners to promote collaborative problem-solving and democratic innovation at the local level. The event takes place in Bilbao from 10 to 12 February 2026, bringing together diverse stakeholders to delve into democratic innovations by jointly working on the real-life challenges presented by selected cities – the challenge owners. Over three days, participants will work in small teams of peers, assisted by a group of higly experienced facilitators,  to design actionable, ready-to-implement democratic interventions to bring them back to their administrations. In this creative effort, the teams will be accompanied by mentors: democracy experts and practitioners from the Nets4Dem network, Bilbao and Arantzazulab staff and experts, and local stakeholders. To ensure learning exchange and breadth of perspectives, participants will take part in the study visits presenting innovative practices in Bilbao and the Basque Country. 

The working language of the Democracy Lab is English. Participation in the event is open to cities and towns in the EU and Horizon Europe countries, and is free of charge. 

We provide lunches and coffee breaks but do not cover travel or accommodation costs.

Please note that due to limited capacity, registration is restricted to two representatives per city.