Ieva Cesnulaityte explores the intersection of deliberative democracy, democratic resilience, and collective trauma. Currently she advises on the design and implementation of the first citizens’ assembly in Vilnius, Lithuania. She is one of the 2023/2024 Europe’s Futures Fellows at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) and ERSTE Foundation. Currently she is a senior advisor and previously founding head of research and learning at DemocracyNext, a global platform of democratic innovation with a mission to build new democratic institutions for the next democratic paradigm of citizen participation and deliberation. Earlier in her career Ieva was a policy analyst at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, working on innovative citizen participation. She co-authored the organisation’s flagship report Catching the Deliberative Wave and the Citizen Participation Guidelines, authored its Evaluation Guidelines for Representative Deliberative Processes, and edited a series on New Democratic Institutions for Participo. She also worked in the office of Lithuania’s prime minister, leading the country’s participation in the Open Government Partnership Initiative.
