ORBIS aims to transform the democratic landscape of Europe by addressing the chasm between citizens and policy-makers. Democracy is in need of reshaping, with an emphasis on participation, engagement, transparency, responsiveness, accountability and effectiveness. The current state of solutions is fragmented, and produces scatters contents that often lead to dysfunctional argumentation. In light of this, ORBIS addresses the lack of dialogue between citizenship and policy making institutions by providing a theoretically sound and highly pragmatic socio-technical solution to enable the transition to a more inclusive, transparent and trustful Deliberative Democracy in Europe.

Funded by the research programme Horizon Europe and co-led by the Department of Design and the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies of Politecnico di Milano, the project involves 13 partners from 7 Countries and aims at augmenting participation, co-creation, trust and transparency in deliberative democracy at all scales.

ORBIS delivers:
- a methodology for deliberative participation and co-creation at scale;
- novel AI-enhanced tools for deliberative participation across diverse settings;
- a novel socio-technical approach that augments the articulation between deliberative processes and representative institutions in liberal democracies;
- new evidence-based democratic models that emerge from the application of citizen deliberation processes;
- demonstrated measurable impact of such innovations in real-world settings.

Through innovative digital solutions, it champions a transparent and participatory deliberative democracy model at scale. Pioneered democratic models, methods and processes developed within ORBIS will offer pragmatic solutions resonating with the modern European citizens's voice, being experimented and validated in six distinct use cases:

1. Reimagining the building blocks of democracy
   The global collaboration aims to reflect on the building blocks of democracy by drawing on the expertise of the project partners, in particular the DCF - Democracy & Culture Foundation and its network, and by organising expert roundtables and citizens' panels.
2. Teens for democracy
   The participation of teens, aged 13 to 17, in deliberative processes in the municipal councils of five European municipalities, bridging the generation gap and enabling children to actively influence political decision-making. In collaboration with Sapienship, an edutainment document on democracy will be produced and launched under the auspices of UNICEF.
3. Young thinkers and EU decision-makers
   Building on the successful CEPS-led Young Thinkers initiative, it will encourage policy co-creation and digital empowerment of young people by involving them in deliberative processes. Young people will join high-level EU policymakers and leading experts in citizen science and public participation.
4. Future4citizens
   Using an innovative narrative methodology to conduct a series of artificial intelligence-enhanced dialogues with citizens. This more inclusive decision-making process will be guided by partner Reimagine Europe, in collaboration with other leading foundations, and will focus on issues of inequality, tax reform and the role of innovation in achieving the SDGs.
5. Transition mechanism for a democracy city
   In order to amplify citizens' voices in shaping a more sustainable urban future, the institutionalisation of deliberative processes between civil society and local authorities will be promoted, and the involvement of local activist groups and those segments of civil society characterised by low skills and marginalised conditions will be encouraged.
6. Alliance for enterpreneurship and development in Western Greece
   Strengthening citizen participation and co-creation in entrepreneurship and social innovation policies, involving different types of stakeholders and with a focus on social and female entrepreneurship.