Digital democracy
Closed
Status as published by the data source.
Expected Outcome:
Projects should contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:
• Policymakers, practitioners and researchers gain increased understanding of digital democracy, the challenges and opportunities involved in digital democratic deliberations, the current state of the art and the framework conditions supporting its successful implementation.
• Informed investment decisions of (any level) government based on mapping future trends, emerging next practices, related participation culture and engagement strategies for building a thriving digitally enhanced public sphere in Europe. Scope:
The COVID-19 pandemic made e-democracy more relevant and influential than ever before since access to the physical public sphere was limited. Through digital platforms and social media, individuals continue to voice their opinions, expose and mobilise for social movements, fostering change and raising awareness of democracy and fundamental rights. Citizens turned to digital media and collaborative platforms to deal with public affairs, exercising active citizenship virtually. Digital democracy platforms expand the opportunities for democratic deliberations through better and faster political information exchange, public dialogue, engagement in public decision-making and exercising voting rights in political elections. Digital democracy can also play an active role in creating and deepening societal change. However, digital solutions are also more vulnerable to disruption e.g. cybersecurity and privacy threats, misinformation campaigns or digital lobbying, attempting to impact public decision-making, including political election outcomes, and is likely to bring important ethical challenges concerning digital education and digital literacy, access to information, built-in bias, etc.
Increased level of participation between government and citizens requires radical changes and major investment making public administrations more relevant to the social, economic, political and technological environment. To prepare public administrations for increased engagement with the broader public, structures and processes need to be put in place, human and financial resources allocated, an ecosystem of intermediaries and representative organisations defined, most suited technological solutions identified, making public deliberation and moderation in the digital age an integral part of a governmental and also societal ‘culture of participation’.
For this aim, proposals should investigate - building on existing literature and data - the most recent developments, especially as regards the pandemic-induced innovative e-democracy and e-participation solutions at all levels of governance (international, EU, national, regional, local). Historical analysis will allow the consideration of the wider and long-term impacts of e-participation on democracy, political and civic culture, and international cooperation will facilitate the exchange of good practice and success stories. The framework conditions i.e. rules, policies and processes; ways of working (partnerships, structures, collaboration); people (skills, culture and values, leadership); knowledge (data, learning) that support next level democratic participation (emerging and next practices) should be investigated. Research should pay particular attention to digital inclusion as a key challenge and essential element of inclusive citizen participation in public deliberations for a healthy digitally enabled democracy through equal participation irrespective of citizen's income level, education, ethnicity, gender, religion, language used, ability, geographical location, etc., and to the digital divide between generations.
Based on lessons learnt from existing good practice cases and experiences, proposals should consider the citizens’ perspectives in building digital democracy tools and processes, including related technical aspects (e.g. gamification, artificial intelligence). The involvement of different stakeholders, including public administrations, end-users, political actors and the private sector is strongly encouraged to foster dialogue and understanding between diverse interest groups in democratic deliberations, enhance the legal frameworks and safeguards against threats and challenges (e.g. fraud prevention in e-voting), overcoming polarisation and reaching better public policy outcomes.
Proposals are encouraged to collaborate with the JRC Competence Centre on Participatory and Deliberative Democracy,[1] particularly with respect to new emerging forms of democratic participation – through or assisted by – digital means, as well as to the innovative application of frameworks and methods for citizen engagement in building and experiencing digital democracy tools and processes.
[1] https://knowledge4policy.ec.europa.eu/participatory-democracy_en
- Status
- Closed
- Deadline
- (time not stated)
- Opens
- Published
- Total budget
- €9,000,000
- Grant range
- €2,000,000 – €3,000,000
- Country
- European Union (EU-wide)
- Programme
- Horizon Europe (HORIZON)
- Official page
- Open at the source portal
Other calls under Horizon Europe (HORIZON)
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- Advanced TSO control rooms to enhance grid observability, stability and resilience
- Advanced Distribution Management Systems (ADSM) for more efficient and flexible distribution grids
- Community of practice - Data-Driven Decision-Making in Energy
- Industrial processes and equipment for innovative, reliable and scalable tandem technologies (EUPI-PV Partnership)
- Integrated Approaches for Retrofitting Infrastructures with Innovative Energy Storage Technologies
- Demonstration of hydropower technologies for efficient and forward-looking refurbishment of existing hydropower plants
- Delivery of industrial CCUS clusters – Societal Readiness pilot
All calls under this programme
Similar opportunities
- Electoral integrity in the digital context
- Citizenship education as part of lifelong learning
- Sustainable paths to media viability
- Digital and media literacy as drivers for democratic and civic resilience
- Open topic on reinvigorating and shielding European democracy
- Testing and implementation of research results fostering democracy and governance
Where this came from
- Source document
- https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/data/topicDetails/horizon-cl2-2024-democracy-01-07.json
- Document fingerprint
b347d51bdf5b938b(SHA-256, first 16 hex characters)- Retrieved
- First recorded here
What has changed
- url first recorded as https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/horizon-cl2-2024-democracy-01-07 on
- currency first recorded as EUR on
- amount_max first recorded as 3000000.00 on
- amount_min first recorded as 2000000.00 on
- budget_total first recorded as 9000000.00 on
- deadline first recorded as 2024-02-07 on
- opens_on first recorded as 2023-10-04 on
- published_on first recorded as 2022-12-07 on
- status_basis first recorded as source_status on
- status first recorded as closed on
- title first recorded as Digital democracy on
Data source
© European Union, 2026. Source: EU Funding & Tenders Portal. Reused under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU — CC BY 4.0.
Retrieved from the source on .
The source last updated this document on Tue, 17 Feb 2026 17:15:25 GMT.
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