This two-day conference is one of the projects selected for funding under the CIVICA Student Engagement Fund (SEF), which provides mini-grants to support student- and early-stage researcher-led initiatives that foster collaboration across CIVICA universities. The event is hosted at the European University Institute (EUI) and organised by students and scholars from Hertie School, Central European University (CEU), Sciences Po, Bocconi University, Warsaw School of Economics (SGH), and the European University Institute (EUI).
About the Conference
Across Europe, democracy is under strain. Trust in institutions is eroding, populist and far-right movements are gaining ground, and hard-won progress on equality and minority rights is being met with a sharp political backlash. At the same time, inequality and marginalisation continue to shape who gets heard, who participates, and whose knowledge counts.
'Strengthening Democratic Resilience through Inclusive Knowledge Practices' is an interactive student conference that takes these challenges head-on. Over two days, participants will examine democratic backsliding, the dynamics of populism and inequality backlash, concrete interventions that build democratic resilience, and the inclusive knowledge practices needed to sustain participation in democratic life. The conference brings together speakers from academia, policy, and civil society, and, crucially, the students themselves, to think through how marginalised voices can be brought from the periphery to the centre of democratic debate.
An interactive format — not a panel. Rather than sitting through traditional panels, participants will take part in a series of hands-on, participatory workshops — mapping the actors working on democratic resilience, examining evidence-based responses to inequality backlash, designing real human-rights campaigns, and experimenting with embodied, theatre-based methods of political engagement. The format itself is the argument: democratic resilience is built by doing, together.
Across the two days, the conference moves from diagnosis to response: from understanding why our democracies are backsliding, to confronting the populist and inequality-driven forces that fuel that decline, to exploring concrete interventions — legal, civic, and creative — that build resilience from the ground up.
What the Conference will cover
The programme is organised around four interconnected themes, each opened by leading voices from academia, policy, and civil society and developed through participatory workshops:
Democratic backsliding — what is driving the erosion of democratic institutions in Europe and beyond, and how complex societal challenges are reshaping governance.
Populism and inequality backlash — how political and social resistance to advances in equality, gender, and minority rights is mobilised, and how polarisation and emotion shape democratic behaviour.
Interventions for democratic resilience — concrete, stakeholder-driven responses to discrimination and marginalisation, including legal, civic, and embodied participatory methods.
Inclusive knowledge practices — political literacy, advocacy and campaign design, and the role of participation and civic engagement in sustaining democratic life.
This two-day conference is one of the projects selected for funding under the CIVICA Student Engagement Fund (SEF), which provides mini-grants to support student- and early-stage researcher-led initiatives that foster collaboration across CIVICA universities. The event is hosted at the European University Institute (EUI) and organised by students and scholars from Hertie School, Central European University (CEU), Sciences Po, Bocconi University, Warsaw School of Economics (SGH), and the European University Institute (EUI).