Festival Topics

Millions of lives are already being disrupted or lost to natural disasters each year, with the situation worsening as the climate crisis deepens. Drastic action is essential to meet the IPCC’s target of halving emissions by 2030. This topic block explores how legal and regulatory frameworks can be reimagined to align with climate goals, how systems can be designed to anticipate and prevent crises, and how sustainability can be made accessible to all. Central to this is empowering citizens to actively shape sustainable solutions and their implementation. 
 

Project examples: 

• Balancing Climate Goals and Heritage in Barcelona: In pursuit of 2030 climate neutrality, the Barcelona City Council found a creative way to rethink its administrative processes to align climate protection efforts with the preservation of the city’s architectural heritage. 
• Freetown’s Sustainable Urban Financing Model: The City of Freetown developed a replicable financing approach for green urban solutions by combining diverse funding sources with digital innovation to maximise impact in resource-limited settings. 
• Innovation Diplomacy for Climate Action: Transdisciplinary, cross-border collaboration, exemplified by initiatives like the CivTech Alliance COP26 Global Scale-Up Programme, highlights the power of "Innovation Diplomacy" in addressing global climate challenges. 
• Project Zero Waste Malaysia: Tackling plastic pollution and landfill congestion, this community-driven initiative engaged over 40,000 participants to co-create the MY Zero Waste Life manual, fostering grassroots solutions to sustainability challenges. 
• Safe Water for All in Cameroon: This initiative underscores the potential of civic participation to co-develop sustainable, community-centered solutions for access to safe drinking water in underserved areas. 

Effective communication is the cornerstone of building trust and driving meaningful change. This topic block explores how to enhance communication with citizens and within institutions. How can unnecessarily complex forms be redesigned for clarity? What role does “branding” play in public office? Beyond communication, fostering collaboration is equally vital. How do we create the conditions for effective, long-lasting partnerships between individuals, departments, and organisations? 

Project examples: 

• People-Oriented Project Management: This session examines how Project Management Offices (PMOs) can act as transformational levers, shifting bureaucracies from mere knowledge managers to agile learning organizations.  
• Reimagining Politics: The Apolitical Foundation investigates the evolving relationship between politicians and administrations, advocating for a future where these intertwined dynamics are reimagined. 
• Swarm Intelligence for Collaboration: An innovative IT portal demonstrates how non-hierarchical communication and collective intelligence can address the most complex challenges of our time.   
• Streamlining Citizen Services: To alleviate the chronic overburdening of citizens' offices in Berlin, CityLAB used service design methods to identify pain points and prototype practical solutions. 
• Digital Welcome Center for Newcomers: The city of Berlin launched a digital platform to enhance state information services and arrival structures, addressing the needs of previously overlooked groups, including stateless individuals. 
   

Thriving societies depend on quality education and meaningful employment opportunities. What defines “good education” in today’s world? How can meaningful work be ensured for everyone amidst rapid societal changes? This theme explores topics such as reforming the nursing profession, fostering lifelong learning, addressing skilled worker shortages, and reviving the public sector’s reputation as an attractive employer. 

Project examples: 

• Attracting Talent to Bureaucracies: The session Building an Entrepreneurial State delves into the traits of bureaucracies that successfully attract and retain skilled professionals, with insights from around the globe. 
• South African Employment Stimulus: Amid a staggering youth unemployment rate of 55%, South Africa’s Presidential Employment Stimulus has been a critical step in combating unemployment and poverty. 
• KoCampus Lifelong Learning: The town of Herzberg (Elster) in Germany bridges the gap between city and countryside by leveraging university students and lifelong learning initiatives to strengthen local communities. 

Healthy democracies actively promote equality and equity. Creative bureaucrats work toward a fairer world by amplifying unheard voices and dismantling outdated power structures. This topic block explores innovative ways to leverage public systems—like procurement and technology—to empower marginalized groups, improve mobility and accessibility, and ensure resources are distributed more equitably. It highlights how bold approaches can transform institutions to better serve diverse populations and meet their unique needs. 
 

Project examples: 

• Inclusive Public Procurement: Lithuania’s government is harnessing the power of public procurement to create economic opportunities for marginalised groups, including people with disabilities. 
• Navigating Old Power Structures: This account of a young female politician highlights the need for change in a parliament where only one-third are women and just two MPs are under 35. It explores how centering young, female, and unconventional perspectives could transform public institutions and society. 
• AlgorithmWatch: This initiative examines the dual nature of algorithmic systems, seen by some as tools for protection and by others as additional bureaucratic hurdles. Where is the balance, and how can everyone benefit? 
• Smarter Asylum Allocation: In Germany, an algorithm-based system was developed to distribute asylum seekers based on their needs and abilities alongside municipal quotas, improving integration outcomes. 
• Tailor-Made Mobility Systems: KLNavi is a precise digital navigation system that was developed to enhance mobility and independence for blind and visually impaired individuals. 

Finance and resourcing might not typically be associated with creativity, but they are pivotal in enabling—or blocking—innovation and progress. This topic block explores how procurement and resource management can be reimagined to support new ideas, foster innovation, and deliver more efficient services. It emphasises de-bureaucratisation and the creation of infrastructures that empower public systems to adapt and thrive. 

Project examples: 

• Procurement as a Catalyst: The session Shop Well To Be a Force for Good unites diverse international perspectives to examine how the public sector can use procurement creatively to deliver added value for citizens, companies, and public institutions alike. 
• New Economic Thinking: Actors like Demos Helsinki are driving forward reflections on economic transformation, connecting individuals and organisations working to create new economic systems across Europe, and identifying key governmental roles in facilitating this shift. 
• SoFinData for Evidence-Based Spending: Berlin’s SoFinData platform provides a comprehensive data-driven foundation for managing social spending, enhancing transparency and understanding the real impact of public funds on democracy. 
• Simplifying Access to Funding: The German FörderFunke initiative simplifies the process of accessing funding, helping citizens understand complex financing conditions and claim the support they’re entitled to for their projects. 

The question of a good life—both personal and collective—is a universal concern. Achieving better health and wellbeing requires not only crisis responses but also deep systemic change. This topic block explores how environments can be designed to enhance well-being, prioritise vulnerable groups, and rethink essential areas like digital healthcare and care work to meet the needs of the future. 
 

Project examples: 

• EU4Health Funding Programme: The EU’s largest health investment to date strengthens the resilience of health systems across Member States, coordinated through national contact points to ensure impactful use of funding. 
• Caring Cities Initiative: City governments in Bogotá, Buenos Aires, and Los Angeles collaborated with caregivers to better understand their challenges and co-design policies that address their needs directly. 
• Arts and Policy City Certificate: This innovative programme equips city governments to design transformative projects through arts and community participation, with tangible impacts on public health, transport, and education. 
• Suicide Prevention in Brazil: Fraiburgo’s Epidemiological Surveillance Team and Psychosocial Support Center have developed a data-informed initiative that provides coordinated support for individuals and families affected by suicide attempts, focusing on prevention and recovery. 

To tackle today’s challenges, we must embrace new ways of thinking and break free from outdated paradigms. By cultivating collective imagination, bureaucracies can reimagine governance and co-create transformative systems that ensure a sustainable and equitable future. This topic block delves into bold approaches that enable us to envision and act on alternative possibilities. 

Project examples: 

• The Art of Imagination: In Western societies a lack of social and political imagination is inhibiting us from adapting to big challenges like climate change. Sir Geoff Mulgan explores how we might address this ‘imaginary crisis’. 
• People Power Game: This interactive, gamified exercise encourages participants to grapple with the world’s shifting demographic balance, as populations globally transition from being predominantly young to increasingly older. 
• Future Generations Commissioner: The perspective of future generations often is not considered in policymaking processes. In response in 2015 Wales introduced a Well-being of Future Generations Act and accompanying Future Generations Commissioner role which have since inspired the world. 
• 50 Days, 50 Months, 50 Years: Rethinking Bureaucracy: How do you balance immediate improvements to government systems with a visionary approach to shaping the future? Hear practical strategies for achieving quick wins in just 50 days while considering the policies and processes needed to build the world we want to live in 50 years from now. 

Public organizations worldwide are navigating significant transformation, grappling with challenges such as breaking down silos, fostering transdisciplinary collaboration, and eliminating unnecessary bureaucracy. This topic block explores how to rethink administrative structures, make innovative use of personnel resources, and create cultural environments where bold ideas can be developed, tested, iterated, and scaled. The focus is on enabling organizational cultures and governance structures that drive meaningful change. 
 

Project examples: 

• LA-BORA! gov: This Brazilian government innovation lab leverages behavioral science to improve the experiences of 53,000 employees across administrative organizations, driving cultural and operational change. 
• Local Innovators Program: Over six months, local governments and social entrepreneurs in Latin America and Africa collaborate to develop creative solutions to pressing urban challenges, fostering cross-sector innovation. 
• Agile Coaching in Ministries: Agile coaches from the German Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs share insights on three agile toolkits, showcasing practical methods for fostering cultural change and improving processes in public offices. 
• Small Change, Big Impact: This clever initiative from the Jobcenter Düsseldorf demonstrates how small, creative process redesigns can yield significant impacts without requiring complex or lengthy implementation. 
• Inter-municipal Digital Collaboration: In Germany’s Hochsauerlandkreis, 12 municipalities adopted an innovative intercommunal approach where teams from three cities collaborate on digital projects and openly share results to accelerate progress. 

Active citizen participation and social engagement are essential for vibrant political systems and effective decision-making. By fostering inclusion, active listening, and shared power, administrations can build transparency and trust. This topic block examines how participation processes can be designed to meaningfully involve civil society and create collaborative paths for shaping the future together. 

Project examples: 

• Tiny Town Hall: Discover the mobile space that brings the city of Kiel’s administration to citizens, creating opportunities for dialogue at eye level. It serves as a testbed for public participation and innovation. 
• ReStart Ukraine: A collaborative initiative developing a guide for post-war recovery through collective measures, shared expertise, and scenario planning to work toward common goals. 
• Empowering Words for Democracy: Human rights defender Namatai Kwekweza delivers a compelling speech featuring 11 transformative concepts—from “Ubuntu” to “reimagination”—that inspire action and strengthen democratic values. 
• The Democracy Guide: This digital map increases transparency by showing citizens their elected representatives at municipal, state, and federal levels across the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. 
• Electionville Serious Game: This boardgame about local democracy is a global sensation – it’s been translated to 23 languages and is in regular use across Europe, Africa and Latin America to fostering awareness of democratic processes and catalyse active civic participation. 

Public spaces—whether physical or digital—form the foundation of our shared lives. These spaces must be designed inclusively and creatively to foster a sustainable future. This topic explores how creative bureaucracy can reclaim cities for people, enable effective local transport, and unlock the potential of public spaces through imaginative placemaking 

Project examples: 

• Cities in Placemaking: This two-year peer learning programme has involved representatives from 13 mid-sized European cities in a peer-learning process to sharing knowledge about placemaking as a collaborative approach to designing public spaces. 
• Samverket: Sweden’s first innovation and co-working hubs are being piloted as a national concept, garnering immense interest from across the country. 
• What if Women Designed the City?: This session examines how urban planning systems can better address the needs of women, providing actionable insights for inclusive city design. 
• Integrated Project Processing: A new collaboration-based procurement model in Germany offers innovative ways for administrations to streamline planning and construction projects. 
• Citizen Participation in Infrastructure Crises: The city of Lüdenscheid’s citizens’ office turned an infrastructure challenge into an opportunity for greater public involvement in shaping their region. 
• Bicycle Network 2.0: The city of Münster embraced co-creation and digital tools to redesign its cycling infrastructure, making biking safer and more efficient during the pandemic. 

Digital tools and data hold immense potential to transform public administration by automating tasks, processing complex information, and supporting better decision-making. However, many administrations lag behind in adopting these technologies. This topic explores how to bridge the gap, addressing issues like AI ethics, trust in data use, and the design of digital public spaces to ensure equitable access and innovation? 

Project examples: 

• Democratising Digital Opportunities: The Aspire to Innovation (a2i) flagship programme under the ‘Digital Bangladesh’ agenda, supported by UNDP, is a country-wide ambitious approach to decentralise public services and improve access for all. 
• Improved Crisis Warning Systems: The modern data analysis tool, PREVIEW, is used by Germany’s Foreign Office for early detection of international crises which has streamlined information management. 
• AI in Public Administration: Baden-Württemberg’s “F13” innovation lab tackled the challenge of using AI language models to enhance administrative work while complying with data protection laws. 
• Crisis Engineering in Action: Lessons from the rescue of Healthcare.gov during the Obama administration in the US illustrate how crises can catalyse public sector innovation. 
• Safecity: This crowd-mapping tool, launched in New Delhi and now with data from 86 countries, tracks incidents of sexual and gender-based violence and provides crucial data for improving public safety programmes worldwide.