The largest festival for public sector innovation!

The Creative Bureaucracy Festival returns with a live event on 2 June in Berlin.

After hitting new records in the digital festival edition in 2021, with more than 18,000 visitors from 94 countries, the Creative Bureaucracy Festival is starting the new year with an expanded programme. On 2 June 2022 the festival will again take place live in person in Berlin. We will be hosting creative minds from all over the world, kicking things off with a welcoming address from Wolfgang Schmidt, the head of the German Federal Chancellery.

Meet public sector innovators and creative changemakers at the Creative Bureaucracy Festival and take part in over 50 keynotes, seminars, fishbowls and workshops as well as a variety of networking opportunities.

The Festival will kick off at 8am (CEST) at Radialsystem in Berlin – right on the riverside in the center of city. The location offers an impressive auditorium for our mainstage as well as several other distinctive rooms for discussion and exchange. With our fingers tightly crossed for a bright summer’s day, there will also be the chance to mix and mingle on our beautiful riverside court with food, drinks and vibrant talks in deckchairs.

Be there! Tickets are available now. Find more information on all speakers, sessions, topics and performances in our programme calendar!

Get Your Festival Ticket

All Sessions & Speakers

PROGRAMME HIGHLIGHTS

FESTIVAL MAINSTAGE

Our main auditorium will host several keynotes, specialist lectures and project presentations on a variety of themes, from accelerating climate action and decolonising international development, to rethinking organisational structures and cross-sector relationships, designing for scale, and nurturing responsible leadership.

We are happy to welcome programme partners live on stage such as Demos Helsinki, the UNDP, UCL IIPP, digitalswitzerland, several global cities, and countless other creative changemakers working within and closely alongside public administrations.

A couple of highlights include Giulio Quaggiotto of the UNDP who will explore the big question: “Can Global Bureaucracies Be Reinvented?” and Susan Pettifer of City of Sydney who will talk about her work on “Empowering Female Climate Leaders”.

The mainstage will be streamed on our website for everyone around the globe to join. Register here and login to watch on 2 June.

FESTIVAL BOWL

Our fishbowl conversations will offer 50-minutes discussions and dialogues, encouraging active participation from a wider set of participants in larger group exchanges.

One partner organiser helping to shape our fishbowl programme is the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt. With the support if their RISE Cities programme, we will host a discussion on the topic of “Cities Under Pressure”, bringing together perspectives from representatives of various global cities on the crises they face, and different creative approaches for recovery and healing.

Another such partner is Salzburg Global Seminar, who are with us for the first time together with representatives of their first Public Policy News Voices Europe cohort. Their fishbowl will discuss perspectives on transforming bureaucracies from the inside out to shift power balances and ensure true diversity, equity and inclusion.

FESTIVAL SEMINARS

In our seminars you will learn about a specific key topic within a 50-minutes format, diving into detail through examples from practice. Each seminar will offer practice-related input and share knowledge or other types of toolkits or methods as takeaways.

We are excited for a variety of topics such as “Doughnut Economics in Action: How can True Smart Cities Use The Doughnut and Its Data to Thrive in Balance?” hosted by our festival partner PD and featuring perspectives from various city ‘doughnut initiatives’ from across Germany and Europe.

Another couple of highlights include a discussion between global city leaders on how to nurture great public leadership in contradictory environments, hosted by the new Bloomberg Center For Public Innovation, and a deep-dive into how to fight the fear of imagination in governments from last year’s award winner Demos Helsinki, drawing on their recent work on The Imaginary Crisis.

CBF ACADEMY

How can social transformation processes be democratised?

If creative bureaucracy strengthens our agency and capability to act, we can fundamentally change the way we feed, power or move ourselves.

At the Creative Bureaucracy Festival Day, Politics for Tomorrow and Dark Matter Labs invite you to four sessions that open up a collective workspace for experimenting, learning from each other and expanding our perspectives.

Since 2018, the CBF Academy has been addressing the question of “HOW” to build better public futures together. This hands-on environment welcomes everybody interested in supporting a future-fit public sector and changing systems with and for society.

Your creative contribution to “Democratising Transformation” is essential so do not miss this format!

NETWORKING LOUNGE

Looking for an opportunity to connect, network and exchange ideas about your work or discuss the festival’s topics?

Don’t worry, there will be plenty of opportunities to do so. Join our Festival Networking Lounge to take part in diverse meet-ups, speed dating and other facilitated encounters between international city leaders, government innovation agencies, and the various other creative changemakers who are joining us. Here we will give you the opportunity and help you to connect with other interesting speakers and participants who will be at the Festival!

As a special treat we are thrilled to have a special guest in our backyard – The “Tiny Town Hall”: a municipality in human size. Meet them and experience participation and public innovation at eye level! Look out for a few surprises in their space.

FESTIVAL PARTNER PD

The six PD sessions at the Digital Kick-off Day on 24 March included insights on what makes a modern public administration, an innovative concept for collaboration between GovTech start-ups and the administration, and details of PD’s sustainability strategy.

“The live festival is now not only a great opportunity to engage with experts from administrative practice, academia and civil society”, says Stéphane Beemelmans, Managing Director of PD, adding, “We are looking forward to high-level keynotes, panel and fishbowl discussions, interactive workshops and seminars – and, of course, more exciting PD projects that we will present together with representatives of our clients on stages big and small!”

Don't miss any festival news & updates

Subscribe to our Newsletter