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Placing citizens at the heart of the green and just transition to achieve a REAL DEAL for both the people and the planet

Jul 11, 2022

Environment & climate

REAL DEAL is a recently-launched research project, funded by the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme, that aims at reshaping the active participation of citizens and stakeholders around the European Green Deal (EGD).

Building on recent experiences of pan-European deliberation processes, such as the Conference on the Future of Europe, the REAL DEAL’s main research objective is to analyse, test and validate innovative citizens’ participation and deliberation tools, formats and processes in the context of the green and just transition. 

The research partners have started to lay out the conceptual foundations for a future protocol for deliberative decision-making at European and country-level in the context of the European Green Deal. This will be followed by a test and validation of innovative deliberative formats and tools across 13 countries and at EU level, including digital, hybrid and physical events and processes.


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In parallel, the REAL DEAL partners have started to identify and mobilise a pan-European network of stakeholders, with more than 500 organisations working in the areas of deliberative democracy and climate action across Europe. The first meeting of this stakeholder network took place during the “Civil Society Forum for Sustainability: Shaping the European Green Deal”, starting on June 9th in Brussels (Belgium).

The project has a dedicated transdisciplinary approach, a co-lead in the project coordination, and a co-creation of the whole work from the beginning and throughout: from the proposal to refining the research questions, the work in the work packages and task up to the internal review, all is done in joint work between researchers and civil society organisations. From a citizen outreach perspective, the REAL DEAL is set to engage with citizens and other stakeholders by building a community of Europeans who promote participation and deliberation in the green and just transition. The digital hub where citizens can get involved and take action is: www.realdeal.eu.

To meet the ambitious objectives for its research and citizen outreach activities, REAL DEAL brings together 16 (sixteen) partners, including researchers of deliberative democracy  and Europe’s largest civil society organisations (CSOs). 

The project is jointly coordinated by the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS), a research organisation, and the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), a civil society organisation. 

The REAL DEAL research project involves: 

  • Researchers and practitioners of deliberative democracy from a wide range of fields, including sustainability studies, participatory democracy, environmental rights and the law of public participation, ethics and responsible innovation, gender studies and ecofeminism, psychology, geography, urban planning.
  • Europe’s largest civil society networks advocating on the environment, climate, sustainable development, women’s rights, local and European democracy and youth environmental organization

ALDA is looking for the implementation of this project, while promoting active participation within the green transition! 

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