The Centre of Expertise for Multilevel Governance at the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe is launching a call for participants in the training course for lead facilitators of citizens’ assemblies.

The call is open to representatives of civil society organisations, academia or free-lance experts on participatory democracy from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo*, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia.

Citizens’ assemblies, a form of deliberative democracy in which a broadly representative body of randomly selected people weighs evidence, deliberates to find common ground and develops detailed recommendations on policy issues for public authorities’ decision makers.

The training path is composed of one online session (26 May 2026) and one four-day in-person event (16-19 June 2026, in Podgorica, Montenegro) that will provide a comprehensive learning experience focused on core concepts of deliberative democracy and citizens’ assemblies, standards for deliberative democracy, competences related to facilitation and citizens’ assemblies design.

All training-related expenses, including travel, accommodation and per-diems are covered by the Council of Europe.

Detailed information on the training course, eligibility requirements, selection criteria and application can be found here. The application form and CV (in Word and/or PDF) in English must be sent no later than Tuesday 31 March 2026 (23:59 CET) to Ivana Radenovic at [email protected], copy to [email protected].

Further information on deliberative democracy is available here.

The call is launched within the framework of the Council of Europe project “Strengthening innovative democracy in South-East Europe”, implemented by the Centre of Expertise for Multilevel Governance at the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe with the financial support of Germany.