The OpenEU Democracy Festival is a student-led online festival exploring democracy not as an institution, but as a human practice — lived, debated, designed, and reimagined every day. We are looking for speakers, researchers, practitioners, and storytellers who can bring fresh, inspiring perspectives to our programme. All proposals should be non-partisan, accessible to diverse audiences, and aligned with EU core values of human dignity, freedom, equality, the rule of law, and human rights.
This is not a conference — and that's the point.
Think the best TED talk you've ever seen, combined with the energy of a live talk show and an audience that refuses to sit still. Sessions are short and punchy. Hosts challenge speakers, not just introduce them. The audience votes, debates, jumps into breakout rooms, and shapes what happens next — live, from across Europe.
Every twenty minutes or so, something changes. A question flips the room. A poll surprises everyone. A conversation breaks open in a direction nobody expected. The energy shifts from intellectual tension to collective laughter to something you genuinely made together.
This is a festival about democracy, so it tries to be democratic in every sense. Come ready to think. Come ready to talk back. Come ready to be surprised.
We will be having talks, discussions, and workshops. Please apply with your proposal