INNOVADE has started pilot activities in Thessaloniki, its first real-world test of how digital tools can support citizen participation at the municipal level. The pilot opened with an online webinar on 23 October 2026, which introduced the project and the planned activities in the city and explained how people can take part in the next stages. The pilot runs until May 2027 through a series of online and in-person events, open to everyone: citizens, students, researchers, institutions, NGOs, businesses and community groups.
Thessaloniki joined INNOVADE through the Horizon Europe Hop-On facility, which brought the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh) into the consortium together with its expertise in citizen science. As the project’s third pilot municipality, the city offers a large urban setting in which to test how well the INNOVADE Digital Democracy App holds up at scale.
That is precisely why the pilot sites were chosen as they were. Thessaloniki, Geel (Belgium) and San Martín de la Vega (Spain) differ markedly in population, size, languages spoken and levels of literacy, and each faces its own participation challenges. Testing the same tools in three very different settings means the app is not tuned to a single context: feedback from each municipality feeds into the next round of development, so that the final version works for large cities and small towns alike. The Geel and San Martín de la Vega pilots will begin in 2027 and will benefit directly from what is learned in Thessaloniki.
The pilots follow the same co-creation principles that guide INNOVADE’s Living Labs. In INNOVADE we belive that digital democracy cannot be engineered from the top down it has to be built with the people it is meant to serve. In practice, this means testing tools in everyday settings rather than controlled environments, involving users throughout as contributors of ideas and feedback rather than as end recipients, and bringing citizens, public authorities, researchers and businesses to the same table. Development is iterative: solutions are tested, refined and tested again on the basis of real-world use. Participants in Thessaloniki are therefore not just trying out a finished product but helping to shape it.
Join the pilot or bring INNOVADE to your municipality
People in Thessaloniki who want to take part in upcoming pilot activities can find details and register here. INNOVADE is also open to working with further municipalities that want to test and adopt its digital democracy tools. Local authorities interested in joining can contact the project via Contact form.