Project
Voices for the Res Publica: The Common Good in Europe
‘Voices for the Res Publica: The Common Good in Europe' is a three year project (started December 2006) funded by the Ford Foundation and housed within the jpr/ Institute for Jewish Policy Research.
The original remit of the grant was to address one of Europe's most pressing problems today: the loss of a sense of the common good in our pluralist democracies, with a consequent erosion of feelings of shared belonging and the emergence of new types of tribalism. The project has deliberately used the Latin term for the public good to distinguish its goals from other types of intercultural or inter-religious dialogues, seeking to promote a more harmonious ‘living together'.
The res publica project chose to bring together independent critical voices from different religious, cultural, ethnic and secular backgrounds, each speaking in his or her personal capacity, in a series of small, closed and off the record national round tables - each lasting for two and a half days in a residential setting outside big cities. The national round tables were intended to open the way for a more pan-European shared reflection on the res publica.
The project itself comprised six national round tables (in the UK, Poland, Sweden, France, Germany and the Netherlands) over slightly more than eighteen months (from April 2007 to November 2008), ending with the first European round table. Each national round table was held in conjunction with a national partner: the British round table with the think tank Demos, the Polish one with the Warsaw university Collegium Civitas, the Swedish one with the publishing house/Foundation Natur och Kultur, the French one with the review Esprit and La République des Idées, the German one with the Einstein Forum and the Dutch one with the Felix Meritis Foundation.
Information: www.jpr.org.uk/common-good-in-europe/
