On 31 March 2026, the CIVICLAB project held a major public engagement event that brought together more than 72 participants and 20 speakers in the morning programme. The event was conceived as a core WP1 activity and delivered as such: not as a stand-alone dissemination occasion, but as a structured moment of territorial activation, dialogue, and co-design directly linked to the objectives of Work Package 1.

WP1 aims to establish the conditions for meaningful civic engagement, to identify local priorities through inclusive deliberation, and to activate an initial community of participants able to contribute to the project’s subsequent phases. The event was designed around these goals from the outset. Its two-part structure reflected the logic of WP1: the morning session opened a shared public conversation among institutional, civic, academic, and project actors; the afternoon session transformed that conversation into participatory work, inviting attendees to move from listening to co-creation.

The event created an unusually dense and constructive exchange between local communities, regional and municipal representatives, civil society organisations, foundations, university staff, students, and the project partners. This broad participation generated a strong sense of collective ownership. Participants did not engage as passive audiences, but as contributors to a common process whose relevance was immediately visible to the territory.