The ORBIS and MultiPoD projects — both EU-funded Horizon Europe research initiatives advancing citizen participation and deliberative democracy — are pleased to announce the launch of a formal cooperationfocused on civic engagement in the area of housing policy and lived experience in Europe.

 

Building on MultiPoD’s “Have Your Say: Online Citizens’ Dialogue on Housing”[https://multipod-project.eu/events/%f0%9f%8f%a0-have-your-say-online-citizens-dialogue-on-housing] — a pan-European online citizens’ dialogue that brought together diverse voices to co-create insights on housing challenges and ideas for fairer policy solutions — and ORBIS’ dialogue “Do You Have a Place to Call Home?” [https://re-imagine.eu/events/do-you-have-a-place-to-call-home] launched by Re-Imagine Europa, which invites people across Europe to share bold, lived experiences and proposals on housing, the two projects have identified strong thematic and methodological synergies around inclusive, participatory deliberation on housing issues. 

 

MultiPoD, which fosters cross-cultural and multilingual public deliberation using innovative digital tools to bridge barriers and connect communities, and ORBIS, which develops socio-technical and AI-enhanced approaches to scale inclusive, transparent deliberative democracy, will work together to:

·                  Amplify citizen voices on housing across Europe, ensuring diverse participation and shared learning;

·                  Explore integrated approaches for evidence-informed deliberation, drawing from tools, methods, and outputs developed in both projects;

·                  Support impactful pathways from citizen contributions to policy understanding and decision-making.

 

Through this cooperation, ORBIS and MultiPoD enhance their shared research capacity and deepen the focus on housing as a crucial societal challenge, where technological and democratic innovations work hand in hand to make these processes more inclusive and meaningful. By combining insights and approaches, the projects contribute to a growing European momentum in which EU institutions are actively engaging citizens in shaping housing policies.

 

Another strength of this collaboration is the application of new deliberative technologies to facilitate large-scale, multicultural debate on housing challenges in Europe. Specifically, the Open University’s Democratic Reflections platform will be used by both projects to enhance real-time, multilingual multimedia engagement. The MultiPod and ORBIS teams will actively contribute to the co-design of Democratic Reflection, share lessons learned, and discuss both the obstacles and factors that promote successful engagement with this novel technology. 

 

Stay tuned for updates on joint outputs, events, and insights from this collaboration.