ENCODE
It is clear that negative emotions are key influencers in our daily decisions and the decision-making process. In the political spheres, an over representation of negative emotions can increase the risk of social and political divisions, trust erosion in democratic institutions, and fueling the rise of populism. People’s frustrations and negative feelings, amplified by social media, lead to greater social fragmentation and political deadlock, making it difficult to address major societal challenges.
Launched in 26th June 2024, in Łódź, Poland, the Encode project aims to understand the role of emotions in political decisions. Encode, which stands for “Unveiling emotional dimensions of politics to foster European democracy,” seeks to examine political tensions threatening European democracy through the lens of emotions. The project investigates how our emotional responses influence susceptibility to disinformation.
From 2024 to 2027, Encode plans to design a unique sentiment analysis method and through it, research the role of emotions in political situations. By the end, Encode will develop a set of best practices for creating policies based on citizen engagement in touch with the emotional dimension of political decision-making. These strategies will be a major tool to build emotional connections between citizens, enhance trust in governments, and improve communication across the political spectrum.
Building on the RIE’s narrative methodology and the insights from the first narrative observatory (NODES), Re-Imagine Europa’s team is supporting the Encode project through the research and creating phases. RIE’s expertise is essential to framing the research of the Encode project to wider audiences particularly by supporting the transformation of research results into actionable policy pointers for European level policymakers.
RIE’s co-creation methodology for citizen innovation labs occupies a pivotal role within ENCODE, as it structures the implementation of WP6 and enables the translation of findings from earlier work packages into actionable, future-oriented policy outputs. Grounded in the literature review and the results of WP2 and WP3, and further informed by relevant findings from WP4 and WP5, the deliverable develops a co-design framework for the creation of future emotional narratives tailored to the intersectional dynamics of the pilot countries. This methodology is central because it operationalises ENCODE’s participatory ambition: through citizen innovation labs, voting citizens are positioned as active contributors to the production of novel emotional narratives that can inform future policymaking. The methodology therefore provides the foundation for the design of workshop materials and processes, supports the subsequent evaluation of narratives during the labs execution, and establishes the basis for later work on foresight, policymaking, and exploitation. As such, it functions as a core methodological bridge between research evidence, co-creative citizen engagement, and democratic innovation.
