The Annual Meeting in Paris built off of the discussions of the previous year to delve into the field of citizen deliberation and the role of the new Democracy R&D network. The primary purpose was to discuss what the network should achieve in the next year, what the members wanted from the network, and what was required to do that.
The goals for the network set out in the first annual meeting were categorized in the following buckets: collaborative projects, democratic reform, collaborative learning, mutual aid, communications, and membership and infrastructure. Detailed notes were taken on each small group conversation, which were then compiled into a Democracy R&D Plan, setting intentions and guideposts for the network. The plan extrapolated, noting membership criteria, goals for membership numbers by the end of the year, what infrastructure would be necessary to achieve those goals, etc.
As the field of deliberative democracy was continuing to grow, the topics discussed in the Meeting served as a space to set parameters for the network by members, and ensure that it would be governed by the same principles that underpin innovative democracy itself: inclusion, accessibility, transparency.
