Twinning Programme
Many organisations have already successfully scaled a democracy-strengthening initiative, while others are ready to learn but face barriers to scaling.
The Twinning Programme connects the two.
What it is
A 12-month, structured peer-to-peer learning track in which one mentor works with up to four mentees in a Twinning Community of Practice. Together, they co-design concrete, context-specific action plans for scaling a democratic innovation.
Mentors support mentees in applying proven scaling approaches to their existing projects, tackling one or more of the four scaling dimensions.
Twinning Communities work on reaching more people, places or sectors (Scale Out), improving methods and processes (Scale In), gaining institutional or political support (Scale High), or deepening democratic culture among underserved groups (Scale Deep).
Meet the eight Twinning Communities
- What about Dem mentors Social Fabric Lab in preparing a territory-wide Citizens’ Convention on the future of New Caledonia, building on the permanent citizens’ assembly the Congress established in 2026 (Belgium, France).
- Resilient Cities mentors LePKE, UAB The Critical and Self-Help Centre (Gdynia) in using its MAP rapid-prototyping framework, with physical interventions on local sites, to anchor democratic innovation in urban planning (Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland).
- Wandelwerk e.V. mentors Shared Future CIC, Asociación El Día Después and Community Council (Reengage Community) in keeping citizens engaged in democratic processes over time and anchoring their participation in local decision-making (Denmark, United Kingdom, Spain, Germany).
- Zelena akcija mentors Eko-svest and Krka Knin in applying its Green Phone methodology to mobilise political power for local citizen initiatives (Croatia, North Macedonia).
- SAME mentors ActivEU, PNTP, DRONI and Consiliul Național al Elevilor in adapting the Solidarity Action Day, a youth-led participation model, to their national contexts (Germany, Portugal, Moldova, Georgia, Romania).
- Democratic Society mentors Manisa Metropolitan Municipality, Çorlu Municipality and Centro Studi Sereno Regis in applying its Democratic Innovation Capacity framework to build the democratic capacity of public institutions (Belgium, Türkiye, Italy).
- SocLab Foundation mentors Alternative Communities Association in embedding participatory budgeting in Hungarian schools (Poland, Hungary).
- Directorio Legislativo mentors COPA in making ParlOur, COPA’s AI-powered platform for parliamentary transparency, stronger and transferable to other parliaments (Argentina, Armenia).
Active coaching, support, and peer-to-peer learning
Three physical community meetings, two one-on-one mentoring sessions and one online meeting per mentee, all facilitated over the course of 12 months.
Funding up to €65,500 per community
Covering staff time, travel for key meetings and costs linked to each mentee’s scaling action.
International network
Connection to practitioners, experts and partners across Europe, with opportunities to learn from mentors and mentees in other Communities.
Evidence and learning
Support to design a scaling action plan and to document, adapt and validate effective scaling strategies.
Contributing actively to community activities
Each mentee attempts a scaling action in their own context, and all members of each Twinning Community contribute actively to every joint session.
Dedicating working time to community activities
Depending on the size of the community, participants dedicate between 25 and 35 working days to joint activities. Mentees also dedicate working time to their own scaling action.
Contributing to evaluation report
Each community contributes to a report on its activities and results, based on a template provided by ScaleDem. These reports feed into ScaleDem’s research on what makes scaling work.
Two Q&A sessions held on 20 and 29 January 2026
Applications assessed by the jury
Selected mentors and mentees announced
Physical kick-off event held in Cascais, Portugal
Online joint sessions and individual mentoring
In-person meeting
Online joint sessions and individual mentoring
In-person meeting
Discover the Piloting Programme
While the Twinning Programme helps organisations adapt approaches that have already worked elsewhere, the Piloting Programme funds organisations testing innovative, ambitious ideas for scaling democratic innovations that have not been tried before.