Democracy Pioneers from NESTA

The changes to democracy and civic participation imagined in the scenarios for everyday democracy and Democracy Pioneers: Exploring possible futures for better local civic participation and democracy in the UK would add up to a fundamental shift in how people understand and participate in the decisions that affect their lives and the services and neighbourhoods we all need. They may or may not be your preferred ideas or scenarios, and you may have bigger, bolder, better ideas that could also shape the future. But what is most important is that we all start to reimagine the ecologies, systems, processes, institutions, and interactions of our democracy in new ways, keeping the best and bringing in the new.

We think there should be thousands of these explorations around the country, imagining what democracy and civic innovation could look like in the coming years. These conversations and processes must create new spaces for citizens to revisit the meaning of democracy itself, allowing a reconnection with our roles and what we want from our institutions. Methods and approaches outlined in work such as our toolkit on participatory futures, Our Futures: By the People, For the People, or in the resources we outline in Section 4 of the paper are a good place to start designing these plans.