Caceres, as candidate for the European Capital of Culture in 2016 is actively pursuing local initiatives to involve participation by citizens in cultural and societal processes. The vision of the city is to create active participation in all aspects of public life, strengthen democratic processes and help citizens to articulate their vision for the future. A current programme of almost 100 micro-processes, called Caceres Creativa, delivers new projects, services and opportunities to the community.

As the capital of the sparsely populated Extremadura Region in Spain, Caceres acts as the regional node for cultural and economic transactions, integrating new technologies to achieve the goals of participation in culture and society through the use of new collaboration tools. Collaboration is essential in low-density regions, and hence solutions that can help maintain citizens informed about cultural activities, participatory processes, economic opportunity and to make services more accessible are essential.

Caceres seeks innovative solutions that can help achieve the goal of greater participation and collaboration. Participation can be expressed through cultural, democratic, economic or social collaboration. New modes of transport such as car-sharing could make services more accessible, integrated agendas could help bring cultural activities closer to the citizen and collaborative maps on history, society, culture or accessibility could involve citizens in visualising their city and future.

Winners of the Award Category will be invited to pilot their service in Caceres and can become part of the city’s Micro-Process programme already underway.