On 4 November 2026, the 4DataDemocracy project will bring together online partners and local representatives to transform the elements collected in partner countries into constructive questions, shared visions, and citizen-led opportunities for action.
What happens when data is available, but does not fully describe the reality of a community? This is the question at the heart of 4DataDemocracy, the project funded by the European Union under the CERV programme to support rural and peri-urban communities in using data as a tool for participation, inclusion, and more informed local decisions. After the first phase, “Discover”, the project is now moving towards the second of its four pillars, marked by the letter D: “Dream”.
TheOnline Data Forum on 4 November is designed as an interactive working session to transform the elements collected during the Local Discovery Quests into questions, visions, and strategies to be explored throughout the project. The Forum will serve as a bridge between what communities have discovered and what they wish to investigate, imagine, and develop afterwards.
Different territories, shared challenges
Attraverso i Local Discovery Quests, i partner di sei Paesi diversi hanno individuato, pur affrontando sfide differenti, un’esigenza comune: better data, capable of reflecting the real experiences of people.
In Poland, the LEVEL UP association brought together representatives from civil society, public administration, the education sector, and local communities. Together they identified a fundamental need: before gathering further information, communities should understand what is already available.
In Italy, Materahub and Pro Loco Miglionico combined interviews and documentary research to investigate needs and perceptions at the local level. Their work highlighted the poor visibility of natural and tourist resources and showed how knowledge of the territory, combined with better data, can contribute to local development. The Municipality of Monteroni di Lecce identified areas of investigation ranging from digital and democratic literacy to participatory science, municipal environmental data, and shared data management mechanisms.
In Croatia, the NGO SUMA focused on a very concrete aspect of daily life: youth mobility and public transport. The Local Discovery Quest combined an in-person event with 324 responses to a questionnaire, systematically identifying and defining seven data gaps.
Taken together, these experiences demonstrated how data gaps can influence the way communities understand their needs, how citizens participate, and how public decisions are made.
Asking better questions
The common thread of these experiences is simple but fundamental: better decisions depend on better questions. The Online Data Forum incorporates these territorial perspectives into a common discussion at the European level, helping to move from identifying gaps to formulating questions that communities can explore. This is where the phase begins Dream.
Through the upcoming workshops Local Vision Factories, dedicated to imagining the future, local communities will be encouraged to transform the previously emerged results into future-oriented ideas and priorities. The aim is not to collect data as an end in itself, but to understand which data can help communities to act, which voices may still be missing and how the collected elements can support more inclusive forms of participation.