On 21 November 2025, ScaleDem officially launched its two Advisory Boards – one for end users and one more scientific – with an online kick-off meeting that felt much more like a conversation among co-conspirators than a formal ceremony, with a provoking question:
If you were Machiavelli today, advising a Prince (or Princess), what would be your key advice?
The answers that followed painted a collective portrait of what our advisors believe leadership, and by extension, scaling democratic innovations, should look like today.
From ruling over to governing with: empathy, power-sharing and the “hardly reached”
Several advisors instinctively moved away from Machiavelli’s classic image of power as something to guard and defend, and towards a vision of power as shared and relational.
Silke Tönshoff (Head of Unit, European Committee of the Regions) brought empathy to the centre, arguing that compassion and solidarity should be treated as political strategies, not just personal virtues. In an era where these values are increasingly challenged, she stressed how crucial they are for reconnecting leaders with citizens – especially at local and regional level. Sonia Bussu (Associate Professor, University of Birmingham) pushed the idea further: for her, the real “Prince” today should be the people who rarely participate. Borrowing from Gramsci, her advice was to cultivate pessimism of the intellect (and see structural obstacles clearly, as we strive to do in ScaleDem) and optimism of the will (organise, educate and act anyway, as she is trying with her own project INSPIRE), especially with those usually described as “hard to reach” but in reality “hardly reached”. Melisa Ross (Researcher, University of Bremen) summed up this shift with a deliberately anti-Machiavellian line: the best way to keep power is to share power.
For ScaleDem, these reflections go straight to the heart of what we call scaling deep and scaling in:
- Deep, because democratic innovations only really scale when they become part of everyday democratic culture and speak to your “heart” as much as your head.
- In, because process quality, inclusion and attention to those “hardly reached” are non-negotiable if we want scaling to be responsible.
Bold, ambitious, but with feet on the ground
Another cluster of answers focused on the balance between ambition and realism. Kim Conniff Tabor (Editorial Director, Democracy & Culture Foundation) argued for dreaming big and “thinking crazy”, while keeping feet firmly planted in practical constraints. Tim Hughes (Democracy & Participation Lead, Open Government Partnership) called for leadership that stops merely reacting to crises and becomes proactive and bold, anticipating challenges rather than constantly catching up. At the same time, Hussam Rahayel (Head of Projects, Better Politics Foundation) voiced the need to deliver fast and create visible wins: in complex political environments, early tangible results can build confidence and momentum for deeper transformations.
For ScaleDem, which aims to construct a “scaling infrastructure” rather than run yet another isolated pilot, this is a useful compass. Our twinning and pilots programmes, the “scaling grounds” we just launched via open calls, will need to:
- Support teams that are ambitious about scaling high (towards institutions) and out (towards more people and places),
- While designing pathways that are realistic in very diverse political and administrative contexts,
- And making sure participants can point to concrete progress, not just conceptual advances.
Radical honesty in a world of spin
A third theme was honesty and transparency, proposed almost as a mischievous answer to Machiavelli himself. Wouter Boon (Professor, Utrecht University) suggested radical honesty as the Prince’s most surprising move: in a world full of spin, truly transparent leadership might be the most disruptive strategy available. Alexander Hudson (Senior Advisor, Democracy Assessment Unit, International IDEA) reminded us that in politics, “everything is constantly renegotiated”, nothing is ever fully settled, which makes candor about limits and uncertainties even more important. Graham Smith (Professor, University of Westminster) added both experience and humour, reminding us that staying in power may be less interesting than transforming how power works in the first place…and not to always listen to what Machiavelli has to say!
For ScaleDem, this translates into being explicit about:
- What our framework and tools can help scale – and what they cannot;
- Where the barriers are political, not just technical;
- How far a Horizon Europe coordination & support action can realistically go in changing systems that are bigger than the project itself, yet without doubting ourselves too much either;
In other words, the scaling compass we are building should not be a glossy promise of easy replication, but a candid guide to navigating trade-offs, risks and constraints. The boards are now launched. The real work of scaling democratic innovation together starts here!
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