Dembrane is proud to join AI4Deliberation, a €3M European research consortium of 13 organisations building AI-powered tools to revitalise democratic participation.

The European Commission has selected our partnership to develop open-source solutions that bridge the growing gap between citizens and their representatives.

Democracy is struggling, with a growing distance between citizens and elected representatives. Communities willing to champion the democratic process lack effective ways to come together, share their voices, and turn their collective wisdom into meaningful impact. The European Commission (the executive branch of the EU) recognizes these challenges. In response, the Commission has allocated significant funding for organizations to explore solutions to these problems.

This year, Dembrane joined forces with 12 other European organizations to submit a €3M research proposal, which has recently been accepted by the European Commission. The consortium (a group of collaborating organizations) ranges from universities to non-profits, and from large IT consultancies to small award-winning software projects. What unites them is their expertise in the intersection between AI and Democracy. The name of the consortium is AI4Deliberation.

Goal

The goal of AI4Deliberation is:

To research, create, and pilot open-source AI-powered tools that facilitate mass deliberation to strengthen participatory democracy.

This includes promoting and protecting a civic space where an active and independent civil society and citizens are provided with the enabling conditions and tools to become more engaged. But what would this space look like, what tools must it include, and how would citizens become more engaged? These questions will be tackled through academic research, experiments with AI features, co-creation of deliberative tooling, and large-scale pilots validating the created tools with citizens - all while being thoroughly examined by an ethical board.

The goal of AI4Deliberation is ambitious but clear - and perfectly aligned with Dembrane's mission: to empower every voice to participate in decisions that impact their community. This is why we joined this consortium. We look forward to working alongside consortium partners who bring world-leading expertise in areas like:

• the ethics of data processing (Institute of Criminology, Ljubljana),

• the ethics of AI (advisory board of 3 top scientists from the USA, Norway, and France),

• the social-technical view on (the adoption of) DemTech (TU Delft),

• argument mining (University of Dundee), and

• practical expertise of participation events (City of Bamberg, ActionAid).

Our Role & Timeline

What is Dembrane's role within this three-year research project? It's what we do best: Building Democratic Technology (DemTech) that empowers every voice to participate in decision-making. Our role is to translate research insights into user-friendly DemTech tools that make democratic participation accessible and usable by communities currently struggling with participation.

At a high level, the project begins with a preliminary research phase, followed by two years of iterative building and testing backed by rigorous academic research. It concludes with a phase exploring how these findings can be effectively incorporated by large institutions and have sustainable impact.

How you can contribute

What does this mean for you? For our partners, it means that Dembrane's product development is guided by world-class ethical and sociopolitical research. For democracy enthusiasts, it means Europe's democratic technology landscape will get a significant boost. And for all engaged citizens around Europe, it means participating in decision-making that affects you will become more accessible. Want to stay up to date on project updates? Make sure to follow our LinkedIn and sign up for our newsletter (coming soon).

Link to official portal page about AI4Deliberation-project (European Commission)

Link to official website about AI4Deliberation-project

Ideas? Comments? Anything else you'd like to contribute? Leave your thoughts via the Dembrane portal below.

We are excited to start. People know how. Our task now is to build the infrastructure that makes our voices heard.

Happy talking,

Dembrane.