Categoría Knowledge
Design of community initiatives in Galdakao Zeugaz is moving forward
On June 17, Tximelarre and Urreta hosted the second co-creation session of the Galdakao Zeugaz project. This meeting served to define the first “seeds”—or small community experiments—that will be launched this summer based on the citizen proposals gathered during the listening phase.
Priorities and Proposals from the Local Ecosystem
During the group work, participants analyzed different ways to adapt health and wellness initiatives from other settings—such as the Bengoetxe walks—to the context of Tximelarre and Urreta. Participants highlighted the opportunity to involve young families through parent-teacher associations (AMPA), as well as groups with specific mobility needs. Key meeting points for organizing these activities were identified as the Senior Citizens’ Association—with the proposal to reclaim the space of its former playroom—and other informal social gathering spots in the neighborhood.
Furthermore, there was a discussion about restoring community memory, particularly regarding the neighborhood’s traditional festivals held in late July—an interest shared by the young people who are moving into the Urreta area. They also explored simple ways to expand mutual support among residents (such as helping with package pickup or caring for children and pets), using visual tools to facilitate communication and neighborly coexistence.
Next Steps and Testing Phase in K Tool
Following the discussion, the immediate actions to be tested over the next two weeks as part of the social innovation process using the k tool were defined:
- Activation of the walks: Presentation of the initiative to local exercise groups to encourage resident participation.
- Reviving Local Memory: Launch of a neighborhood mail campaign to collect historical photographs of the festivities, which will be projected during a community picnic at the Senior Citizens’ Association during the Galdakao festivities. This gathering will serve as a starting point to reignite the conversation about the future of the Capi Neighborhood Association.
- Socialization and dissemination: Share updates and visual materials from the sessions through WhatsApp channels.
These initial experiments will be monitored throughout the month of July. The lessons learned and challenges identified during this phase will be shared at a new review meeting scheduled for late September.
Mayors' Forum at the 3rd World Congress of Age Friendly Cities and Communities
The Kursaal Palace in Donostia hosted the International Forum of Mayors under the title “Municipal Leadership in the Face of the Challenge of an Aging Population.” This political and deliberative gathering took place as part of the 3rd World Congress of Age Friendly Cities and Communities
The event brought together local leaders from diverse international contexts to reflect on the impact of demographic change on urban governance, social cohesion, and public innovation.
Four Global Perspectives on Demographic Change
The opening session, titled “Four Voices to Open the Dialogue” and moderated by Gorka Espiau (ALC), served to compare different global realities regarding longevity. Ricardo Luis Núñez, mayor of São Paulo, reflected on the complexity of managing aging in a large metropolis marked by diversity and social inequalities. From a very different cultural and territorial context, Jeevan Khatri, mayor of Changunarayan (Nepal), highlighted the value of community ties and everyday solidarity. For her part, Mechthild Weber, a member of the Hamburg Parliament, explained how a city-state structure facilitates integrated institutional responses that connect the local and regional levels. Finally, Jon Insausti, mayor of Donostia, advocated for the need to approach aging in a cross-cutting manner across all urban initiatives, empowering older adults as active agents in the city’s development.
A space for discussion and collective building
Following the initial discussion, the forum was organized into dynamic working groups. Participants explored in depth the challenges, tensions, and opportunities arising from the integration of aging into public policy and urban planning.
Through guided questions, participants discussed strategies for building more livable, sustainable, and healthy communities. They also examined the democratic role that older adults should play within government priorities and the new community partnerships needed for the future.
The conclusions and reflections shared during the forum will be compiled into an institutional statement that will serve as a policy contribution to the Congress and the development of the International Network of Friendly Cities and Communities.
The meeting concluded with remarks by Anne Berit, president of the Congress, and Thiago Hérick de Sá, representative of the World Health Organization (WHO).
Collective action, community-based work, and narrative analysis with Carmen van Bruggen
Researcher Carmen van Bruggen of the University of Groningen is conducting her doctoral research on the phenomenon of auzolan (community-based work) in the Frisian region of the Netherlands (known as Mienskip) and is comparing these practices with their counterparts in the Basque Country. Although not widely known, this type of collective and supportive response to community needs is common in traditional cultures and has persisted over time, particularly in rural settings.
The purpose of the meeting with Carmen van Bruggen was to learn more about this research and to explore how it relates to other research projects and programs being carried out by ALC. Since it is not possible to promote transformative innovation processes that do not respond to the social and cultural dynamics of the region, we are interested in examining how we are currently interpreting these types of collaborative strategies and what form they are taking.
From the farmhouse to the Mondragon Cooperativism
In this context, the discussion focused on the historical relationship between the traditional farming community and cooperation, highlighting how its self-sufficiency did not preclude community collaboration for tasks that exceeded individual capacity. An analogy was drawn between this model and the Mondragon cooperative system: autonomous structures interconnected through a network, a balance that has historically fostered greater social resilience.
K Tool and the Guggenheim Case
From a methodological perspective, participants discussed the potential of K Tool, the digital community listening platform developed and used by ALC for large-scale qualitative data processing, referring to the extensive work conducted in connection with the public debate on the expansion of the Guggenheim Museum. During that process, more than 1,000 real-life narratives were collected to identify underlying patterns and conduct comparative analyses. Thanks to this tool, it was possible to structure different levels of interpretation and systematically cross-reference people’s stories with their everyday actions.
Following this first meeting in Bilbao, Carmen van Bruggen will continue her research in Gipuzkoa over the coming days.
New York will host a Seminar Marking the 90th Anniversary of the First Basque Government and Lehendakari Agirre
On June 9, the institutional program for the 90th anniversary of the first Basque Government was presented at Ajuria Enea.
The anniversary activities will take place over the coming months, in collaboration with other Basque institutions and social partners in the country. As part of the international program, on July 14, Columbia University in New York will host one of the main events linked to the anniversary, in recognition of Lehendakari Agirre’s work as a professor at that institution. The event will promote dialogue on current democratic challenges.
Agirre's legacy and current challenges at Columbia University
This event, organized by the Office of the Government of the Basque Country, is part of the United Nations High-Level Political Forum (HLPF). The meeting will take place at Columbia University and will bring together experts from the Government of the Basque Country, the Government of Catalonia, the Agirre Lehendakaria Center, HiTZ (Basque Language Technology Center), and Columbia University itself.
The main objective of the meeting will be to engage in a global reflection on the major challenges facing democracy and to foster debate on new digital tools for addressing complex social challenges, with a special focus on the negative effects of polarization. To this end, both governments will share the national strategies they have developed in this area. Additionally, the Agirre Lehendakaria Center and the AC4 centers will present ‘K Tool,’ a digital tool that will enable the exploration of new avenues for collaboration in managing polarization in digital environments.
Collective intelligence responding to emergency situations
Agirre Lehendakaria Center welcomed Jayne Engle, a Senior Fellow at the center and an adjunct professor at McGill University in Montreal. During the meeting, Jayne Engle shared the experience of Polity, a cooperative that supports efforts to deepen democracy in digital environments.
Among other initiatives, Polity has collaborated with Engaged California through its digital platform, Ethelo. Engaged California is a platform for collaborative response between public institutions and civil society to the emergency situation that arose last year in California due to the wildfires that devastated the state. This tool allows users to visualize the complexity of different perspectives and response suggestions so that participants can prioritize proposals, weigh them, add comments, and see in real time how their opinions influence decision-making by public institutions.
Understanding science, technology, and innovation policies in the Basque Country from the perspective of an experimentation portfolio
This collaboration combines ALC's portfolio-driven approach with the “Relational Infrastructure” approach developed by Kateryna Pereverza to examine how shared narratives and interrelationships are key to understanding how the science, technology, and innovation ecosystem in the Basque Country has evolved over the past 50 years.
ALC continues its research on public policies for science, technology, and innovation in the Basque Country, covering the period from 1980 to 2030, while exploring new methodologies to address systemic transformations. To this end, the team has been working in Bilbao alongside Kateryna Pereverza, a researcher at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Stockholm), to delve deeper into how to apply the portfolio approach to the analysis of public policies.
The central goal of this joint effort is to move beyond the traditional view that sees science, technology, and innovation (STI) policies as a collection of isolated initiatives. Instead, the collaboration proposes understanding the “STI ecosystem” as a dynamic and much broader system that integrates interventions at multiple levels, mapping of stakeholders, and, crucially, social narratives.
Relational infrastructure and emerging portfolios
To structure this work, the research incorporates the “Relational Infrastructure” methodological framework developed by Pereverza. Through a longitudinal analysis of the qualitative data collected by ALC, aided by artificial intelligence tools, the study examines the historical evolution of the Basque STI ecosystem from the 1980s to the present.
One of the study’s most innovative findings is the existence of an “emerging portfolio.” Unlike approaches where collaboration and learning are designed in a top-down, corporate manner, the Basque case suggests that mechanisms for transformation emerged organically through informal structures, networks of trust and learning among stakeholders, and a strong culture of cooperation.
From Project to Portfolio: The Evolution of Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) Public Policies in the Basque Country (1980–2030)
Research shows that the evolution of science, technology, and innovation (STI) in the Basque Country cannot be understood solely through specific programs or policies. Over the course of five decades, the development of the ecosystem has been guided by shared narratives that gave meaning, direction, and legitimacy to collective action.
This perspective offers a complementary view of international debates on mission-oriented policies. While these approaches typically examine how missions are defined and driven by public institutions, the Basque case suggests that strategic direction can also emerge from society, based on a shared vision of the future and a strong capacity for collective action.
The main innovation of this research is that it analyzes the evolution of the Basque Country as a portfolio of interconnected policies, organizations, and initiatives, rather than studying isolated interventions. It also analyzes these elements in relation to the narratives and social dynamics of each historical period. This allows us to understand how collaboration, learning, and co-evolution among the various elements (actors, initiatives, policies, and narratives) have contributed to building a unique innovation ecosystem.
Presentation at EuSPRI 2026: International Conference on Transformative Innovation Policies
ALC and Kateryna Pereverza will present the findings of this study at the EuSPRI 2026 international conference, to be held on June 10, 11, and 12 in Valencia. There, they will share with the scientific community on transformative innovation policies (TIP) how the use of social narratives can transform the evaluation of innovation policies. In addition, they will demonstrate the potential of the K Tool, the digital platform developed by ALC to analyze and visualize portfolios based on community listening; a key tool in this research for managing innovation policies more dynamically and projecting them into the future.
The European Initiative: The New Center of Excellence in Social Innovation
This commitment to working with portfolios rather than isolated projects coincides with the launch of the New Center of Competence in Social Innovation (NCCS), a European initiative in which ALC participates alongside six ministries of the Spanish government, the CDTI, and the CSIC.
The best practical example of this approach is the VIDAS Portfolio. With an investment of 156 million euros, this ecosystem—in whose design and evaluation ALC is involved—connects 95 innovations from 143 organizations in real time to transform the community care system. It proves that coordinating and integrating initiatives generates far greater impact than launching projects separately.
A Consolidated and Scalable Approach
This collaboration with researcher Kateryna Pereverza reinforces a methodological approach that ALC already applies on a large scale in various national and international projects. The portfolio approach currently underpins large-scale initiatives such as those developed in partnership with Acción Contra el Hambre (ACH) to create four experimentation portfolios on child malnutrition in different regions of Spain, the Work for Progress ecosystem promoted by the “la Caixa” Foundation, and the European COPOLAD program, which launched five laboratories for the design of public policies more closely aligned with social dynamics. Likewise, at the local level, this model forms the basis of the care experimentation portfolio in the Basque Country, which features active social innovation processes in municipalities such as Galdakao (Galdako Zeugaz), Getxo (Getxo Zurekin), and Gasteiz (Lakua Arriaga).
EmPACT i3 Workshop: Employability with Impact
On February 13 in Irún, ALC participated in the EmPACT i3 Workshop, part of the second workshop of the 2025–2026 academic year of the Employability Itinerary of this cross-border inter-university project.
Employability with Impact is a project run by the EmPACT i3 program that brings together students from diverse backgrounds, teachers, and public and private sector representatives to develop knowledge and skills in future professionals, with the aim of enabling them to have a real impact on the transition challenges facing the Nouvelle-Aquitaine–Euskadi cross-border region.
This initiative, co-financed by the POCTEFA Program 2021–2027, seeks to bring the university closer to the region through practical and collaborative projects focused on the social, ecological, and economic challenges facing the region.
The project is led by Euskampus Fundazioa as coordinating partner, together with the University of the Basque Country and the University of Bordeaux, within the framework of the Euskampus-Bordeaux cross-border campus.
During the workshop, teams made up of students, teachers, and organizations from both sides of the border shared progress, exchanged ideas, and worked together on real challenges facing the region. The day combined practical learning, multidisciplinary collaboration, and the development of solutions with tangible impact.
Democracy Lab Bilbao. Democratic engagement of youth and children
From February 10 to 12, 2026, Bilbao hosted Democracy Lab, a space for experimenting with new forms of citizen participation and collaborative governance, focusing on children and young people.
The event was organized by the City of Bilbao and Arantzazulab, together with a broad Basque ecosystem.
For three days, various agents will work together in teams on real challenges presented by participating cities. With the help of experienced facilitators, including Julia Martínez from ALC, and mentors such as experts from the Nets4Dem network, Arantzazulab, and other local actors, they will design concrete democratic interventions ready to be implemented in their administrations. In addition, they will conduct study visits to learn about innovative practices in Bilbao and the Basque Country, promoting the exchange of experiences and perspectives.
Democracy Lab is an opportunity to learn, experiment, and co-create tools that make democracy more participatory and inclusive for new generations.
The Swedish European Social Fund Council visits ALC
On January 20, the Swedish European Social Fund Council (Swedish ESF Council) visited ALC to learn more about its work in social innovation. The ESF, which reports to the Swedish Ministry of Labor, manages European funds in the country and promotes projects that boost employment, skills development, and social integration.
During the visit, the delegation exchanged experiences and best practices on how social innovation is supported at the local, regional, and national levels, as well as the role of transnational cooperation in this area. The topics discussed were:
- The work and functions of ALC.
- How the social innovation ecosystem works in the region.
- Strategies and support from local and regional policies.
- Success stories that demonstrate systematic approaches to projects and policies.
- The role of ALC with the national support structure for social innovation.
In addition, the delegation met with representatives from the Basque Country Region (Office of European Affairs) to learn about projects funded by EaSI. The visit helped to strengthen European cooperation and the exchange of ideas to promote innovative solutions to social challenges.
Third meeting of the Transis Lab project
From November 19 to 21, 2025, ALC participated in the third meeting of the Transis Lab project, held at FICOBA, in Irun, bringing together all the consortium partners to evaluate progress and strengthen cross-border cooperation in social innovation for longevity.
On November 19, the First Transis Lab Transfer Seminar took place, where the project's objectives and interim results were presented, as well as FRAGILAB pilot experiences. Transfer workshops were held to explore opportunities for adopting these initiatives in urban and rural environments.
On November 20 and 21, the third meeting of the Transis Lab consortium took place, bringing together all the partners to take stock of the project's progress and coordinate the next steps of this cross-border initiative.
Itziar Moreno, from ALC, explained the methodology to develop the TransisLab Agenda. This methodology combines literature review, interviews with social policy managers, and workshops with cross-border entities, with the aim of designing a cooperation framework that promotes innovative solutions, a cross-border ecosystem of social innovation, and a shared training and experimentation infrastructure. The agenda will serve to implement six pilot projects that connect family and local social and health systems, improving the lives of 400 frail elderly people in rural areas.