Community of democracy practitioners and researchers

Topic updates

17 September 2025

CALL UPDATE: PROPOSAL NUMBERS

Call HORIZON-CL2-2025-01 has closed on 16/09/2025.

1122 proposals have been submitted.

The breakdown per topic is:

HORIZON-CL2-2025-01-DEMOCRACY-12: 3

Evaluation results are expected to be communicated in February 2026.

19 August 2025
Please read the published frequently asked questions and answers in the `Topic Q&A` section of the topic.

16 June 2025
Please note that the information about the additional eligibility criteria that applies to the Topic as indicated in the Work Programme is now also published on this Topic page.

10 June 2025
Please note that the technical issue has been solved and the details of the Destination of the topic are now displayed on the topic page.

02 June 2025

Please note that the topic page does not display the description of the destination due to a technical issue, but the full description of the 3 destinations (Democracy, Heritage, Social and Economical Transformations) that are relevant for the call are available in the Work Programme 2025 “Culture, creativity and inclusive society”. Please select from the Work Programme the destination relevant to your topic and consider the description when preparing your proposal.

Community of democracy practitioners and researchers

TOPIC ID: HORIZON-CL2-2025-01-DEMOCRACY-12

Type of grant: Call for proposals

General information

Programme:

Call: Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society - 2025 (HORIZON-CL2-2025-01)

Type of action: HORIZON-CSA HORIZON Coordination and Support Actions

Type of MGA: HORIZON Lump Sum Grant [HORIZON-AG-LS]

Status: Forthcoming

Deadline model: single-stage

Planned Opening Date: 15 May 2025

Deadline dates: 16 September 2025 17:00 (Brussels time)

Topic description

Expected Outcome:

Projects should contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• The networking and capacity-building work of the European network set up under HORIZON-CL2-2022-DEMOCRACY-02-01^[1] is strengthened and augmented.
• Research and innovation communities in the field of democracy and civic deliberation and participation and citizenship education are less fragmented and better networked across Europe.
• Researchers in democracy, including rule of law; practitioners in civic participation and deliberation; communication experts; and public authorities and governments have access to research results, innovative methodologies, and tools in the field of democracy and civic deliberation and participation and citizenship education through networking events, accessible platforms, databases, knowledge repositories, advice and capacity building on enhancing diversity and inclusion, civic participation, civic and citizenship education and innovative and experimental deliberation processes at all governance levels.
• Public authorities and governments practice democratic innovation, by applying research results, innovative methodologies, and tools in the field of democracy and civic deliberation and participation and citizenship education which have been distilled by the network into useful “how-tos" and trainings for policymakers, public authorities, and governments.
• Policymakers and research funding organisations are provided with proposals for future research agendas in the field of democracy.

Scope:

Creating a network for researchers (including from SSH disciplines), policymakers and civil society organisations to collaborate to formulate policy recommendations and to create knowledge-sharing opportunities was the goal of the HORIZON-CL2-2022-DEMOCRACY-02-01 call topic^[2]: to support a necessary tool to strengthen and renew European democracy. The goal of this current call topic is to strengthen, augment, and pursue the work of the network^[3] of researchers in democracy together with practitioners of civic participation and deliberation and of citizenship education across Europe, previously set up. This network should contribute to the EU’s future policy to strengthen and renew democracy.

The selected proposal will establish an innovative successor network of democracy research organisations and practitioners of democratic innovation, which will:

• Produce policy recommendations to strengthen and renew democracy in all governance levels and democratic debate in Member States and Associated Countries, drawing on the existing body of knowledge. These recommendations must be accessible, publicly available, and well disseminated including through a central open access repository.
• Help policymakers in the EU and Associated Countries to design civic participation strategies for relevant policy areas, in conjunction with the European Commission’s Competence Centre on Participatory and Deliberative Democracy^[4] as relevant.
• Organise 2 retreats per year for policymakers from EU Member States, Associated Countries and EU institutions, targeting high-level officials, to learn and exchange from experts and peers on democratic strengthening and renewal, and encourage exchange on emerging or persisting challenges and threats to democracy, participation, and civic engagement.
• Design capacity building activities on inclusive participatory and deliberative forms of democracy at different governance levels, including training and knowledge sharing.
• Organise at least one conference on democratic innovations gathering researchers, practitioners, education bodies and EU and national policymakers.

Proposals should establish links to and seek complementarities with closely related actions, such as relevant R&I actions funded by Horizon Europe (such as the network established under HORIZON-CL2-2024-DEMOCRACY-01-12^[5]) or synergies with the Citizens Equalities Rights and Values programme (CERV)^[6]. Specifically, it must build on, rather than repeat or reproduce, the work produced by Nets4Dem under HORIZON-CL2-2022-DEMOCRACY-02-01. Proposals are also invited to build links with global communities addressing democracy.

The project should have a minimum duration of 36 months.

[1] https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101112280

[2] https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/horizon-cl2-2022-democracy-02-01

[3] https://nets4dem.eu/

[4] https://knowledge4policy.ec.europa.eu/participatory-democracy_en

[5] See: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101178637

[6] https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/programmes/cerv

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