Addressing the Digital Transformation of Democracy

Fatih points to the accelerated pace of digitalisation as both an opportunity and a challenge for democratic processes:

"We have an increased pace of digitalisation after COVID-19, especially. And our democracy is also affected by this period. [...] In our project, we aim to come up with an innovative democracy using digitalisation. Digitalisation brings many opportunities for our democracy, but also it brings some challenges with itself."

This dual perspective on digital technologies forms the foundation of the project's approach, focusing on harnessing positive potential while mitigating risks:

"We want in our project to get rid of those challenges and use it in an innovative way for our citizens to foster our democracy. [...] The main output of the project will be a digital application that can be used by the governments, municipalities and our citizens."

Co-Creation Through Living Labs

Central to INNOVADE's methodology is the implementation of collaborative workshops that engage diverse stakeholders in the development process:

"Within our project, we will organize seven living labs. Within living labs, we want to co-create our products, including external stakeholders: these are citizens, civil society organisations, and local governments, government agencies."

This participatory approach ensures that the digital democracy tools reflect the needs and perspectives of all stakeholders from the earliest stages of development:

"From the beginning, we would like to involve them in our product development and in our research. And we would like to have a better scalable and novel product at the end of the project."

By integrating feedback throughout the project lifecycle, INNOVADE aims to create solutions that are both innovative and practically applicable in real-world settings.

Fatih emphasises the project's ambitious adoption goals: "We would like to get our digital democracy app used by at least two municipalities now who are actually our partners in the project. [...] But we would like to get at least 20 adopters at the end of the project who can use our application."

This focus on widespread implementation underscores INNOVADE's commitment to creating tangible improvements in democratic participation across European communities.

For further information on the INNOVADE project and its initiatives, you can follow us on BlueSky and LinkedIn