Connected to this, the PHOENIX project addresses the following question: how can we improve existing participatory democratic mechanisms to make top-down policies such as the European Green Deal (EGD) more locally embedded and genuinely effective?

As a research project, PHOENIX is primarily concerned with knowledge production: how to enrich so-called ‘democratic innovations’ so that they can better support the green and just transition? While ‘extractivism’ is a key feature of the dominant economic model that caused the climate crisis, it is just as central to the dominant mode of knowledge production.

If PHOENIX wants to break this cycle, we have to start with our own practices: we have to engage in knowledge production in a way that is amenable to the communities that our project wishes to serve. This means that we should work with these communities and find ways to support their agenda while being open and transparent about our own interests.

This is where The Good Lobby comes in: leveraging our work as an NGO dedicated to participatory democracy and equalising political systems, our goal is to ensure that the methodology and research produced by PHOENIX are tangible, practical, and actionable for the communities this project seeks to support.

PHOENIX conducts eleven pilots to co-develop and test improvements in existing instruments for political participation and democratic innovation in specific territorial contexts.

The PHOENIX consortium aims to support local partners by offering a portfolio of democratic innovations and by supporting the establishment and work of a Territorial Commission for Co-design (TCCD) – an organ representing relevant stakeholders and interests that works to co-design processes of political participation in partnership with the commissioning body.

While most of the work will need to take place within the ecosystems of each of the eleven pilots, an inter-pilot dialogue will be organised to transcend the local context with the aim of drawing overarching lessons about the potential and limits of political participation processes in the context of the green transition.

The success of this phase depends on the extent to which local participants will feel ownership of this trans-local and transnational process of learning and exchange, and feel inspired and empowered to integrate the lessons learned in their local work. Moreover, a final conference will be organised in Brussels in order to share and discuss PHOENIX’s findings with relevant actors operating at the EU level, ensuring that future policies adequately reflect the outcomes of the PHOENIX project.

The green transition can only be successful if all play their part, starting with those most powerful and those most responsible for the climate crisis. Operating both at local and European levels, combining academic and civil society expertise with local initiatives, PHOENIX aims to be part of the change we wish to see in the world.