Participedia School
Innovative democratic education spaces co-created by the Participedia community for students, practitioners, educators, government, and global civil society.
2024 Participedia School on Transnational Democratic Innovations
The landscape of transnational public participation - the involvement of individuals or groups from multiple countries in political processes, decision-making, design, or advocacy that transcend national borders or issues - is rapidly changing. There are new innovations, theories, movements, policies, and successes happening around the world. The entangled challenges facing us extend beyond national boundaries, and so do their democratic solutions.
These new transnational processes, methods, and tools are seeing uptake, whether through global deliberative mini-publics and transnational deliberative organizational designs, to, digital infrastructures and methods of connected participation, research, engagement, and coalition building. Now, more than ever, we need to convene on, share, hear from those with experience, and acquire the skills to respond to, learn from, identify, research, and design transnational democratic innovations.
Join us for the next Participedia School on Transnational Democratic Innovations, where you will learn and collaborate alongside the designers of the world’s first global citizens’ assembly, coordinators of the Conference on the Future of Europe, leading academics in the field of democratic innovation and transnational governance, and activists driving the global campaign to reform the UN! This innovative program is produced in partnership with Memorial University, the University of Western Cape, McMaster University, the Coady Institute, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Innovation for Policy Foundation, Mission Publiques, Democracy International, and a consortium of leading practitioners and scholars.
The event will take place in person on June 10-15, 2024 simultaneously at two decentralized locations: Memorial University (St. John’s, Canada), the University of Western Cape (Cape Town, South Africa). The locations will be connected by unique virtual programming to maximize accessibility and impact. Using this globally decentralized approach, we hope to create a transnational ecosystem of learning that reflects the subject, connecting students and practitioners from around the world with each other and leading experts.
The Participedia School will offer:
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Accredited skills training: Support an exchange of learnings between practitioners, students, and scholars under a guided curriculum that leads to skill and field development recognized with a certificate of participation from the Coady Institute. University credit may be available at your home institution, contact us for more information.
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Interdisciplinary, intersectional, and international exchange: Provide opportunity for practitioners, students and scholars to engage with experiences, peoples, and ideas from around the world in a collaborative framework that will lead to new research questions, policy approaches, and partnerships.
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Knowledge sharing, transfer, and collaboration: Explore cutting-edge theories, research, and experience-informed learnings on transnational democratic innovations through problem solving and co-design.
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Knowledge synthesis and dissemination: Build awareness and knowledge amongst the staff of international organizations, diplomats, transnational civil society, activists and university students about the theory and practice of transnational democracy, synthesizing learnings in an open-access publication.
Where: Memorial University (MUN), St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada; University of Western Cape, Cape Town.
When: June 10-15, 2024
Who: Professionals whose work can be enhanced by deepening participation across borders and applying transnational participatory practices; civil society practitioners, advocates, and networks whose impact can be enhanced by strategic participation in, and the ability to create, design, and foster transnational democratic innovations; and higher education students interested in the theory and practice of democracy across borders.
Fee Schedule:
Memorial University in St. John's Newfoundland, Canada
University of Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa
Registration & Scholarships:
Registration and scholarship applications are now closed. To join the waitlist, please fill out this form. All food and drink during the program will be provided to attendees.
If you have any questions please contact [email protected]
UMFG Information
The Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) location of the upcoming Participedia School has been cancelled due to an ongoing strike by staff members of Brazilian federal universities. We stand in solidarity with our UFMG colleagues and movements that uphold democracy, and will not cross the picket line. We are unfortunately unable to offer spaces at either of our alternate school locations due to registration capacity limits. However, we invite interested parties to join the waitlist. Thank you for your understanding.
2023 Participedia School on Radical Democracy with Simon Fraser University Community Engaged Research Initiative (CERi)
The CERi-Participedia Summer School (June 4-10, 2023) – organized under the theme “Radical Democracy”, brought together leading experts, researchers and graduate students and community leaders, activists and practitioners for a week of workshops, discussion, dialogue, community events and field trips. We students joined from the social sciences, including political science, political philosophy, media and communications, sociology, cultural studies, anthropology, economics, environment and related disciplines. Together, with the summer school team and invited guests, we explored what it means to radically re-imagine, research and practice democracy in their communities and in everyday life.
Download the Summary Report Here