The Decidim Association is participating in a new EU-funded project, MultiPoD, contributing to the conceptualisation and development of a digital collaborative infrastructure to foster political participation across Europe.

At a time of polarisation and political biases, can we foster an open and inclusive political deliberation across linguistic and socio-cultural boundaries? When the interplay between national interactions and political/cultural contexts affects global events in complex ways, new opportunities and initiatives arise. In this context lands MultiPoD, a European-funded project under the Horizon Europe programme, that uses a multilingual and cross-cultural approach to supporting communication and collaboration in a European Public Space for Citizen Deliberation. 

Aligned with the Conference on the Future of Europe celebrated in 2021-2022, a citizen-led series of debates and discussions around a number of key priorities and challenges to shape Europe’s common future, the MultiPoD project aims to develop an open space that interconnects existing communities and organisations for political participation. This infrastructure will enhance dialogues, deliberations and decision-making processes among citizens by using Decidim technology. 

Our contribution

Addressing the multilingual and multicultural barriers is at the heart of the project. By using AI-driven knowledge extraction and a culture-specific Language Model, a federated and freely accessible public deliberation space will be deployed. As partners of the project, Decidim will guide organisations, partners and communities involved on how to adopt the software, defining the user stories, helping to solve the bugs and problems detected by the community and the review and acceptance of new functionalities made by them. 

Impact and solutions

But, at a large-scale, how is it going to impact policy making deliberation? MultiPoD will develop and implement two innovative policymaking pilots in Athens and Brussels that will organise a set of Policymakers and Citizen Assemblies to enhance political dialogue around pressing social issues. These discussions will increase involvement of citizens in political deliberation and more transparency of opinions across different linguistic and cultural groups. 

This space is going to showcase how by forging new connections, fostering inclusion of minorities and increasing transparency, a better understanding of participatory processes and policy decisions will be accomplished. Moreover, the project supports democratic values to reduce bias and depolarise current political debates, promoting accountability, transparency and trust. Finally, by bringing together policymakers across Europe with diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, MultiPoD will showcase how outcomes from citizen deliberations can be best transformed into policies that promote social inclusion and democratic processes.