On 12 December 2024, the Trans European Policy Studies Association (TEPSA) organised the mid-term conference of the Horizon Europe project ActEU in Brussels. This academic conference, titled “Strengthening democracy: Building trust and tackling polarisation in Europe”, brought together researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners to assess the project’s key challenges and successes.

During four panel sessions, ActEU experts presented their main findings and key insights on issues of political trust, representation, and civic engagement in democratic institutions across Europe. Participants explored the state of play of representative democracy in Europe, the factors driving trust and engagement in a changing EU, and the role of polarisation in redefining civic values and influence democratic cohesion in Europe. The conference provided an excellent opportunity to engage with a curated audience of scholars and practitioners, discuss the themes critical to European governance, and set the stage for the next phase of ActEU.

ActEU pursues two overarching goals. First, in phase 1, we map and investigate persistent problems of declining trust, legitimacy and representation in Europe with particular attention to the polarisation of societies and the EU´s multi-level structure. Knowledge gained from phase 1 will flow directly into the development of a toolbox of remedial actions characterising phase 2, which will craft tailor-made toolkits for political and civil society actors, school teachers and university lecturers to deal with issues of declining political trust in representative democracies in flux and counteract a further decrease. We develop context-sensitive solutions for all policy levels and types of polarising fields (migration, environment, gender).

Learn more about the project on ActEU’s website, or by following the project’s hashtag on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.