Braga is participates in the Guldborgsund Urban Living Lab, strengthening European learning for urban transformation

Placing citizens at the centre of urban development, cultural planning, and decision-making was the guiding principle of a recent meeting that brought together European partners to exchange practices and experiences in the field of participatory governance.

Over the course of three days, a diverse range of community engagement approaches was presented. These included the “Sundparken” project, which focuses on youth participation in the creation of urban spaces, and “Here Where We Live,” an initiative that connects art, place, and community. The programme also featured fieldwork sessions and workshops dedicated to participatory democracy and co-creation, with a particular focus on methodologies such as Democracy Fitness and Hosting Democracy, developed by We Do Democracy.

These sessions were complemented by opportunities for collective reflection aimed at enhancing public policies and urban governance tools, fostering a dynamic of shared learning across different regions.

Sustainable urban transformation depends on active citizenship, collaborative processes, and jointly developed policies—an ongoing learning process strengthened through networking and interregional cooperation.

Braga’s participation reaffirms the city’s commitment to a more open, inclusive, and experimentation-driven approach to cultural and urban governance.

The UrbCitizenPower project—Empowering citizens to drive change in cities—is being carried out under the Interreg Europe program and is co-funded by the European Union.