37 students from Canada and Euskadi tackle the challenge of «Reimagining the role of the citizen for the next generation» during their one-week stay at Arantzazulab

Arantzazulab hosted a new edition of the Challenge Week from February 17 to 21, in which 37 students from Canada and Euskadi spent a week at our laboratory. Based on the challenge of “Reimagining the role of the citizen for the next generation”, the students reflected on this issue and ended the week by proposing innovative solutions responding to the challenge. 

This year’s edition was special because, in addition to students from local universities, students from a Canadian university took part. The group of participants was made up of students from the “Governance, Leadership and Ethics programme” at Huron College University, students from various degrees at UPV/EHU and students from the Global Digital Humanities degree at Mondragon Unibertsitatea.

The learning experience focuses on innovation in democracy, entrepreneurship and design. Students from different disciplines are invited to work at Arantzazu for a week to respond to a specific challenge. The aim of this initiative is to engage new generations in the social challenge that our laboratory is addressing (innovation in democracy, deepening democratic culture and transforming governance), to gather their views and to involve them in our initiatives.  

In this edition, the students tackled the challenge of “Reimagining the role of the citizen for the next generation”. In a context of increasing political disengagement and negative perceptions about the functioning of democracy, we posed the following starting questions: How can youth participation and empowerment in public institutions and public agendas be strengthened? What can be done to increase citizens’ trust in public institutions? What forms of governance can empower young people in the decision-making process?  

Arantzazulab’s Challenge Week is based on the methodology of creative problem solving and the design approach. Throughout the week, we follow these steps to find the solution to the proposed challenge by encouraging the use of creativity:  

  1. Presentation of the theme and the challenge  
  2. Researching and reflecting on the challenge in small groups.  
  3. Inspiration cases  
  4. Developing ideas and prototypes to respond to the challenge  
  5. Presentation of final concepts  
  6. Sharing ideas with public institutions and local actors

The goal of the first day of the week was to create inspiration and a shared sense of purpose. We hiked around Arantzazu working on a series of activities so that the students could get to know each other, understand the approach we would follow throughout the week, and learn about the initial definition of the challenge. 

On the second day, the students attended several inspiring presentations on Collaborative Governance to focus their work on conceptualising new paradigms. Divided into working groups, the students researched and reflected on the challenge. 

On the third day, they received a great dose of inspiration and learned about existing innovations related to Collaborative Governance in the Basque Country. Specifically, they visited 2 examples of local Collaborative Governance: The Etorkizuna Eraikiz strategy and the Mondragon cooperatives ecosystem. In the morning, Iosu Arraiz director of Strategy of the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa and Olatz Errazkin head of service of Etorkizuna Eraikiz presented the model developed over the years. In the afternoon, they visited the Mondragon Corporation. Germán Lorenzo, Head of Corporate Dissemination, introduced the history, principles, structure and working approaches of the co-operative group.

On the fourth day, the students worked on the ideation and prototyping phase of their proposals. Using the information gathered throughout the week and inspired by new approaches to Collaborative Governance, they proposed and developed innovative concepts and ideas. At Arantzazulab, we introduced the approaches for ideation, prototyping, and supported them throughout the process. 

The students presented to the panel of experts from the universities the innovative concepts worked on in the Challenge Week responding to the challenge defined at the beginning of the week. A panel formed by university representatives assessed the work of students’ groups: University of Deusto, Mondragon Unibertsitatea, UPV/EHU, Huron University (Canada), National University of Rafaela (Argentina), and Arantzazulab.

The experience has been positively valued by the participants and some of the reflections shared by the students have been:

  • Confidence in ideas, in people and in the process is important to carry out initiatives with diverse experiences and approaches. 
  • Collaboration requires finding ways to overcome differences and multiculturalism enriches the development of ideas. 
  • We need to engage politically and civically, both are important and we should put them on the same level. 
  • We need to find ways to engage in the design and development of social networks and artificial intelligence. 
  • There are new ways to participate in the institutional system and we have the opportunity to further deepen them. 
  • We must make compromises and deepen the culture to achieve meaningful change. 
  • We must dedicate patience and time to listen to different visions and types of knowledge at all times. 

Thank you to the students and faculty members who participated actively throughout the week! After an intense week, you have developed eight inspiring concepts, new connections have been made, and it has been an opportunity to deepen the reflection on Collaborative Governance. 

We are already preparing the next edition!