Act on DEMOCRACY

Understanding Our Rights and Protections Online:
The EU's Digital Services Act

with Maria Koomen & Cindy Zheng

 Ideas / Action | New date coming soon

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ABOUT THE HOSTS

Maria Koomen is a Democracy, governance & tech analyst and advocacy specialist. She is the former governance director at the Centre for Future Generations, working on the challenges at the intersection of emerging technologies, democracy, and governance. Her work focused on ensuring that governance systems evolve to keep pace with technological and societal change. Maria led the Open Governance Network for Europe, a joint initiative of Open Government Partnership and Democratic Society to drive connection, dialogue, and learning around public participation, transparency, and accountability with an eye to improving democracy and governance in and across the European Union. Prior to that Maria was senior programme manager on the Democracy Conflict & Governance program at the Carnegie Europe.

Cindy Zheng is a young professional engaged in digital policy. She previously worked in digital transformation in the area of EU projects, development cooperation, and global governance, with the aim to contribute to a more responsible and human-centred digital future. 

ADDITIONAL INFO

FOOD & DRINK	EVENT SIZE	ACCESS
Bar & snacks	Medium <30	Available on request

Had a sweltering summer? Climate change may be front of mind, albeit temporarily. But authorities (International, regional & national) are not acting urgently or comprehensively enough.

We are already +1.5°c warmer, with +2°c expected by the end of this century. This is a planetary and human rights catastrophe. 

Before your attention shifts, get updated on the latest in the transition away from fossil fuels, from actors at the coal-face of climate justice. 

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ABOUT THE SPEAKERS 

Matthias Petel, researcher & lecturer in Human rights law and climate justice, (ULB) has been working closely on the Farmer Case (Falys v. TotalEnergies).

Charles Mertens, climate justice campaigner at Amnesty International Belgique francophone (AIBF)

International Peace Brigades, climate defender from West Papua

Oil Change International (speaker to be confirmed)

Benjamin van Bunderen, founder Climate justice for Rosa 

WORK | Wed 23rd Sept | 10am-1pm & 2pm-5pm

For professionals in political & communications strategy
Places are limited. Book early.

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Narrative Mapping for Political Strategy (morning)

In order to challenge harmful political ideas and systems, from carbon emitting industries to increasingly authoritarian governments, it’s crucial to shift public understanding and common sense. And to do that, NGOs, governmental bodies, and others need to first understand why prevailing narratives maintain their power and appeal. Only then does it become possible to strategically select and design interventions (from media-led campaigns to embedded community practices) that will be sufficiently powerful and appealing to change the political landscape for good.

In this session, we’ll share our expertise about how best to do this, building on years of experience working with coalitions and progressive institutions across the world. Together, we’ll map dominant societal narratives that keep our imagination and action trapped in a limited spectrum of possibilities, and tracing the institutions, practices, and policies that make narratives powerful. 

In this workshop, we will:

• Understand & analyse the landscape of prevailing assumptions and agendas around a topic.
• Apply this to a key political topic or area of focus, identifying opportunities to shift the conversation and alter common sense.
• Consider the role of narrative mapping in larger processes of social and political change

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Creative Storytelling in the Attention Age (afternoon) 

In this session, we’ll sharpen our storytelling skills, with the help of tools and frameworks that can guide and inspire us. And we’ll consider how to make the age-old power of a story work in the age of fragmented political soundbites and the shortest of short-form video. 

We will:

• Analyse what makes for an effective story, considering several different useful models and looking at what makes books and movies so compelling
• Practice telling an important social or political story in new ways
• Strategise for how to tell this story in the new mediascape, keeping people’s attention in a digitally fragmented world
  
  

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PARTICIPANTS

The workshops Narrative Mapping for Political Strategy and Creative Storytelling in the Attention Age are for all professionals working towards reframing a key social issue, or want to communicate more strategically or creatively about an important problem, on or offline.

If you are working in a governmental or nongovernmental organisation that is struggling to cut through the noise on a particular topic, this is designed with you in mind.

ABOUT THE HOSTS

Future Narratives Lab is a democratically owned and controlled non-profit that exists to build the independent cultural and political power of civil society. Based in London, their team works across Europe and beyond, typically through partnerships with groups working on entrenched and complex social challenges. Future Narrative Lab equips campaigners, coalitions and communities with narrative as a tool for building their collective power. 

Sarah Stein Lubrano is a researcher, author and broadcaster. Her academic research has focused on the role of emotion in political communication, and specifically cognitive dissonance. Lubrano is the head of research for the Future Narratives Lab. For many years she was the head of content at The School of Life, where she is still a content lead. She writes and speaks publicly on a variety of topics. In earlier lives, Lubrano made films and worked as a prison tutor and obituary writer.  

Dan Stanley is Executive Director at non-profit research body the Future Narratives Lab, and Strategy Director at economic development co-operative Stir to Action. Daniel has worked with campaigns, coalitions, foundations and political parties in the UK and globally to develop strategies for broadening the appeal of alternative social and economic propositions, including seven years leading digital mobilisation agency Small Axe.

TICKETS

MEMBERS 
Sngle workshop (am or pm) €200
Double workshop (full day)   €400

NON-MEMBERS
Single workshop (am or pm) €225
Double workshop (full day)   €400

KEY LINKS

Future Narratives Lab

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ADDITIONAL INFO

FOOD & DRINK	EVENT SIZE	ACCESS
Refreshments provided. Lunch available	Small (less than 20)	Available on request

CORPORATE POWER in the age of ai
And the cloud

A salon with CECILIA RIKAP

Ideas / Salon | Thurs 24th Sept | 6.30-8.30 pm

*Doors open at 6.30pm. The speaker will start at 7pm.

Not a Member yet? Join Full Circle now & come to events at the Members' rate!

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Cecilia Rikap is an award winning economist and currently Head of Research and Associate Professor in Economics at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP). She is also a researcher at the CONICET, Argentina's national research council and a researcher at University of Technology of Compiègne. Her research is rooted in the international political economy of science and technology and the economics of innovation. She currently studies the rising concentration of intangible assets leading to the emergence of intellectual monopolies, among others from digital and pharma industries, the distribution of intellectual rents, resulting geopolitical tensions and the effects of knowledge assetisation on the knowledge commons and development. 

GOOD READS

The Rulers, Corporate Power in the Age of AI and the Cloud (2026); Capitalism, Power and Innovation: Intellectual Monopoly Capitalism Uncovered (2021); The Digital Innovation Race: Conceptualising the Emerging New World Order (2021).

GEOPOLITICAL SHIFTS AT EUROPE'S EDGES

A SALON WITH Hannah Lucinda Smith

Salon / Ideas | Tues 6 Oct | 6.30-8.30pm

*Doors open at 6.30pm. The speaker will start at 7pm.

Not a Member yet? Join Full Circle now & come to events at the Members' rate!

Long before Putin's invasion of Ukraine, conflict was simmering on Europe's borders. Why have Russian resorts sprung up on the coast of Northern Cyprus? What does Sarajevo's local politics reveal about the ambitions of Trump, Putin, and Erdoğan? these questions were already being written into the map, In overlooked territories in eastern Europe, the eastern Mediterranean and the Caucasus, where local disputes spiral into regional crises, global alliances are forged and broken, and power is brokered while the West looks elsewhere.

It is in these overlooked borderlands that empires end, new conflicts begin, and where Europe's future may be decided.

From the Balkans to the Caucasus, Cyprus to Nagorno-Karabakh, acclaimed correspondent and Pulitzer grantee Hannah Lucinda Smith has spent years in Eurasia's grey zones, meeting the politicians, spies, and ordinary people caught where local disputes quietly become global reckonings.

Join us for an intimate conversation with one of the most incisive voices writing on the borderlands today. Hannah brings the sharp reportage we need to understand contemporary Europe and its unfinished frontiers.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Hannah Lucinda Smith is a journalist and author. As foreign correspondent she has been reporting for major global publications including The Economist, The Times of London, BBC and Monocle, From 2013 to 2025 she has been based in Turkey, reporting across the Middle East and Europe for The Times of London, The Atlantic, WIRED, and others. Before Hinterlands she has also authored Erdogan Rising, an account of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's rise to power, and Zarifa, the memoir of Afghan human rights activist Zarifa Ghafari.

GOOD READS

Hinterlands: Journey's through Europe's edges (2026); Zarifa, A woman's battle in a man's world (2022); Erdogan Rising: The Battle for the Soul of Turkey (2019).

FESTIVAL OF IDEAS 2026

"CONNECTION"

Fri 20th - Sat 21st - Sun 22nd Nov

You already know us, you know what we do, and that by coming YOU make this a great event! 

Get your EARLYBIRD pass for the entire weekend today!