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In a Europe that each day faces new challenges and threats to democratic regimes, the Centre for Social Studies (CES) of the University of Coimbra remains a scientific research centre of reference for the critical approach to theories of participatory democracy and its values.

In fact, CES is the Portuguese research partner of a new research consortium presented in July by the European Commission. Called Nets4Dem | Network of Networks 4 Democracy, it started its work on 1 July 2023, under the coordination of the partner The Democratic Society AISBL (Belgium).

Nets4Dem is a Coordination Action that will establish and develop a European network of practitioners and researchers in the field of democracy, civic deliberation, participation and citizenship education. The Consortium of 10 European partners, with an associated partner from the US, brings together organisations with extensive experience of democratic innovation in areas as diverse as digital democracy, rule of law, climate change, or cultural and creative approaches.

Over 36 months, Nets4Dem will focus its efforts on four main objectives: 1) to create, promote and sustain a stronger network of policymakers, practitioners and researchers; 2) to systematise and articulate existing but still dispersed knowledge on innovation and democratic governance; 3) to establish a coordinated European approach to promote access to democratic innovation; 4) to produce recommendations for the promotion of more ambitious democracy-strengthening policies at all levels of governance.

With a budget of €143,593, the CES team composed by Giovanni Allegretti, Sheila Holz and Denise Esteves is responsible for coordinating the "Learning about Networks and adapt" work area, using a social network analysis approach.

CES is also participating in three new Horizon Europe projects, funded by the European Commission. Within the Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society theme, they fall under the item 'Cultural Heritage and Cultural and Creative Industries' and will run from 2023-2026.

The project CONCILIARE - Confidently Changing Colonial Heritage aims to analyse the ongoing change in Colonial Cultural Heritage (CCH), seeking to increase understanding of these transformations in four key areas: textbooks, public spaces, museums and cultural consumption of products and traditions. On the other hand, it aims to deepen the knowledge about the reactions and representations of the changes in four domains of CCH of diverse sociodemographic groups (ethnicity, gender, generation and cultural contexts). Led by the University of Coimbra, the CES research team is composed of Claudino Ferreira (Coordinator), Paulo Peixoto and Paula Abreu. It has a budget of 182,767.50 €.

Coordinated by the Universitat Des Saarlandes (Germany), the PROTEMO project - Emotional dynamics of protective policies in an age of insecurity is a research project that aims to address the emotional dynamics of social protection policies, studying how political actors understand and influence the emotional needs of citizens (and non-citizens), and how this manifests itself in the political process. The project aims to investigate the emotional reactions, perceptions and actions that social protection policies elicit in individuals and the general public, analysing the ways in which citizens mobilise emotions in reaction to the policy process. Analysing these dimensions will allow PROTEMO to study emotional responsiveness to political processes, an aspect that has been neglected in the study of representative democracies. In Portugal, the CES research team is composed of Cristiano Gianolla (Coordinator), Raquel Ribeiro, Gaia Giuliani and Clara Santos. It has a budget of €469,567.50.

Led by Demos Research Institute Oy (Finland), the research project CO3 - Continuous Construction of resilient social Contracts through societal transformations aims to develop and promote a more democratic, more inclusive and more open model of social contracts that manifests political and social resilience in the face of major societal challenges, crises and anti-democratic tendencies, based on the analysis of the limitations and challenges of social contracts in theorising and policy practises. Based on 8 empirical case studies in EU member states, and 3 non-member states, CO3 will analyse safeguards and mechanisms for resilient social contracts over time. While the theoretical ambition of this project is to analyse how contemporary theories of the social contract contribute to our understanding of social contracts in the current crisis-driven European policy environment, the empirical ambition is to investigate contradictions and tensions between practices, narratives and lived experiences of social contracts across Europe through concrete case studies. As a result of these analyses, CO3 will generate evidence-based knowledge on safeguards and mechanisms to promote resilient social contracts that support citizens' engagement in European democracy. In Portugal, the CES research team is composed of Vanda Amaro Dias and Cristiano Gianolla (Coordination), Teresa Cunha and Gustavo Garcia-Lopez. It has a budget of €398,820.00