Three Horizon Europe projects responded with a proposal to the European Democracy Shield Call

Larpocracy has collaborated with Democratic Literacy and Humour (DELIAH) and Democracy In Action on an exciting project.

Democracy, the rule of law, and fundamental rights are founding values of the European Union. The essence of democracy is that citizens can freely express their views, choose their political representatives, and have a say in their future. Citizens should be able to form their own opinions in a public space where they have access to reliable information from a plurality of sources.

But democracies in the EU are facing significant challenges, including a rise in the number of threats from internal and foreign actors through disinformation, content manipulation, cyber-attacks, and covert political funding. A recent survey shows that EU citizens believe that the two most significant threats to democracy in Europe are a growing distrust and scepticism towards democratic institutions (36%) and false and/or misleading information in general circulating online and offline (34%).

To counter these threats, the EU is launching the European Democracy Shield, an initiative aimed at increasing the trust of EU citizens in democratic institutions, by (among other things) countering foreign information manipulation and disinformation and by fostering citizens’ participation in democracy.

Larpocracy collaborated with its two sister projects to provide recommendations to the EU that support democracy and target the European Democracy Shield’s four key themes:

Countering disinformation and foreign information manipulation and interference

Recommendations:

• Establish training activities for the public to understand how humorous speech affects democratic participation

Strengthening societal resilience and preparedness (including digital and media literacy and critical thinking)

Recommendations:

• Organize training for judges, legal professionals, content moderators, and online dispute settlement bodies, focusing on disputes about humorous expression. Training should aim to protect freedom of expression while countering incitement to discrimination/violence

• Strengthen digital infrastructure and media literacy and promote the development of skills in immersive technologies

• Integrate immersive technologies into educational programs and partnerships between educational institutions, businesses, and civil society

• Incorporate larp-based methodologies into national civic education curricula

Fostering citizens’ participation and engagement

Recommendations:

• Establish creative approaches to humour and democratic participation, including citizen workshops, to increase critical literacy and foster democratic participation; and comics-journalism collaborations to disseminate EU policy goals

• Ensure higher participation in local, national, and European funding schemes among local arts and cultural grassroots organizations; and provide training/support to navigate scarce resources

• Foster intra-European research collaboration at the grassroots level through agile and inclusive tools for partner searches

• Create EU funding for larp-based civic education and cross-border youth exchanges centred on larp experiences to enhance intercultural democratic dialogue

• Pilot local larp forums in municipal decision-making processes (e.g., town halls for youth engagement in urban planning)

• Implement training programs in larp-based scenario planning for policymakers to develop legislative testing through simulations of policy impacts.

Strategic Relevance to the European Democracy Shield

Together, DELIAH, DemocracyInAction, and Larpocracy provide actionable pathways for addressing the European Democracy Shield’s core aims, including:

• Increasing critical awareness of anti-democratic humour and countering disinformation through citizens’ humorous counter-speech and cultural engagement;

• Strengthening resilience and preparedness via grassroots empowerment and media education;

• Fostering citizen participation by enabling local democratic experimentation, especially among underrepresented groups;

• Rebuilding trust in democratic institutions through participatory, co-creative, and culturally embedded democratic practices;

• Safeguarding freedom of expression while promoting constructive responses to anti-democratic speech (e.g., incitement to discrimination, hostility, and violence); and

• Strengthening preparedness to use the potentialities and avert threats posed by online spaces (including the Metaverse).

You can download a summary document with expanded project descriptions, our recommendations for concrete actions, and individual project contacts (scroll to the bottom of the page to the download link)