Events

ActEU Mid-Term Conference 12 Decembre 2024, Brussels

Strengthen Democracy – Building trust and tackling polarisation in Europe

On 12 and 13 December, the Mid-Term Conference of the ActEU project took place in Brussels under the guiding theme ‘Building trust and tackling polarisation in Europe’ at the Trans European Policy Studies Association (TEPSA). This has initiated the second phase of our project. The conference was complemented by a workshop with the Civil Society Network, in which civil society actors from all over Europe took part. The focus was on the exchange between science and practice: in addition to the presentation and discussion of our initial research results, exciting progress towards the development of toolkits for political actors as well as the education sector was made.

The conference focused on strengthening democracy in Europe, in particular on building trust and overcoming polarisation. In four sessions, initial project results, challenges of representative democracy, factors for trust and engagement as well as the effects of polarisation on democratic norms were discussed.

The following day’s workshop with the Civil Society Network from across Europe focussed on the development of toolkits for schools, civil society and political actors based on our research findings. Democracy labs were emphasised as a key format for actively involving young people in democratic discussions and supporting ongoing project activities. The project team from Duisburg presented the format of the democracy labs as well as initial results from Germany and Slovenia, which the team from the Chair of European Integration and European Politics has been executed in recent weeks.

We would like to thank TEPSA for organising this event, all the participants for joining us in Brussels and taking part in the conference and the CSN-Workshop. We are looking forward to all further activities of the project!

See the agenda of the mid-term conference or visit for more information the website of TEPSA here.

In session 1 of the ActEU Mid-Term Conference, Henrik Serup Christensen from the Åbo Akademi University, presented the findings on the general dynamics of trust, while Carles Pamies presented the findings on the voting behaviour in Europe. See both presentations in the videos below.

ActEU Kick Off Meeting 28th March 2023, Brussels |

The first meeting of all ACTEU partners took place on 28th March in the premises of Fondation Universitaire! TEPSA organized the internal meeting, where organizational topics as well as first content-related topics were discussed.

The kick-off was opened by Michael Kaeding (University Duisburg-Essen/coordinator) and Daniela Braun (University Saarland, scientific lead) with welcoming words. After remarks by Julie Baleriaux (Policy Officer at the European Commission) and Paloma Martin (Project Advisor at the Research Executive Agency at the European Commission) all relevant organizational matters and administrative issues were discussed (Liesa Döpcke, University Duisburg-Essen). Together, the most relevant aspects of ActEU were reiterated: What are the key objectives? What are the milestones and deliverables for the first year? (Michael Kaeding, University Duisburg-Essen)

In the second part of the day, the focus was on the contents of WP 1 ‘Providing an infrastructure to assess the decline of political trust and legitimacy’ and the question ‚How do we plan to collect, integrate and apply the ActEU multi-methods approach?‘ (Alex Hartland & Daniela Braun, University Saarland). An overview of the research design of the focus group (Kristina Weissenbach), the public opinion survey (Ann-Kathrin Reinl University Gent) and web-scraping (Daniel Gayo-Avello, Universidad de Oviedo) was given. Afterwards all members of the consortium gave their input to improve the design.

It was a pleasure to welcome all consortiums members in Brussels and we are looking forward to the first steps of the project!

You can read the event’s agenda here.