Conference: ‘Coproducing Democratic Cities in Unequal Times’
16, 17 November 2026, Paris / 18 November 2026, Brussels
How can cities confront growing inequalities, democratic backsliding and environmental breakdown? What role can co-production play in rebuilding trust, supporting collective action and shaping more just urban futures?
The FAIRVILLE final conference will bring together researchers, activists, community organisations, practitioners and public institutions to reflect on the challenges that inequality poses to urban democracy, and on the role co-production can play in addressing them. Drawing on the project as a whole, including its urban labs in Athens, Berlin, Brussels, Cairo, Dakar, London and Marseille, the conference will open a broader conversation with external actors working on democracy, inequality and urban transformation.
Website: Fairville The conference will explore how co-production can generate knowledge, relationships, political claims, forms of advocacy and, in some cases, institutional change. It will also address its tensions and limits, including unequal access to time, resources and legitimacy, and the conditions needed for co-production to support more durable forms of democratic practice.
More info: Conference ProgrammeAbout the Fairville project
The Fairville project is an international and collaborative research project funded by Horizon Europe (EU’s funding programme for research and innovation) for the period 2023-2026. The project intends to address embedded urban inequalities and the challenge they raise to democracy in large cities and urban regions. It does so by supporting co production and bottom-up collaboration engaging citizens collectives in low-income neighbourhoods. The project uses participatory action-research and the co-production of knowledge as strategies of spatial justice to address urban inequalities affecting cities, mainly in Europe, but also in Africa. The research project is based in eight Fairville Labs, mostly linked to citizen-led initiatives run by local groups partnering in the project. The Labs are located in Athens, Berlin, Brussels, Cairo (Giza), Dakar, London and Marseille.
Project: Fairville 
