The Europe Challenge

Across Europe, libraries and the communities around them are shaping innovative, caring, and democratic practices. The Europe Challenge 2025/26 cohort has already shown us: when you spend your days listening and experimenting in your neighbourhood, you learn a lot about your community.

With the Regional Summits held in Cinisello Balsamo, Italy (12-14 October) and London, United Kingdom (19-21 November), 60 teams met in person to exchange experiences, work alongside programme alumni turned mentors, and take part in three days of workshops designed to kickstart their initiatives. Together, they trained their “democratic muscles”, connected across initiatives, prototyped early ideas, learned how to communicate their stories to wider audiences, as well as build meaningful partnerships within — and beyond — their local communities.

The Summits provided the context, yet the real value came from participants’ lived experience navigating limited resources, responding to local needs, building trust, and creating opportunities for people to act together.

Here are five lessons that all of us (citizens, policymakers, funders, organisers) can learn from libraries:

Anti-perfectionism helps you stay kind to yourself when plans shift or projects evolve unexpectedly, but it’s equally powerful as a way to approach others with empathy. As brought up in the Aarhus Public Libraries’ Democracy Fitness workshop, making room for others’ ideas strengthens the collective. Anti-perfectionism is also how you practice democracy effectively; this mindset is now a core value embraced by the 2025/26 cohort.

Library teams know that many challenges are experienced locally, but are widely shared.

That’s why it is so important to connect with allies, even across borders and different social or political contexts. Start by looking within your own community—while also keeping an open mind for the ‘unusual suspects’—, as we learnt in the Community & Partnerships workshop by the Aarhus Public Libraries team. Don’t hesitate to send an email or a coffee invite outside your immediate circle! Partnership becomes much easier once you know your competences, define your needs, identify your audience, and finally gather the courage to reach out.

Libraries can be subversive in the best way. They’re places where people access opportunity, public wellbeing is a core mission, and where the most vulnerable can find safety and information.

For almost any issue you can think of, from food scarcity to digital exclusion, from language discrimination to low political participation or a lack of resources around (the prevention of) domestic violence, a library somewhere is working locally to address it. The Europe Challenge initiatives are proof.

But what if your own library is not (yet) such a place? Whether you’re a library worker, community organiser, or simply a library user, libraries are spaces open for ideas and fresh energy. Don’t be afraid to offer your expertise and think alongside library teams. When stating your vision, allow yourself big, bold statements, then translate them into concrete actions. And if the team is excited about the vision, encourage them to consider the next principle…

Libraries reach their potential when they design programmes with their communities, not just for them. As Councillor Sabrina Francis reminded us at Swiss Cottage Library in Camden, libraries become inclusive, connected, and sustainable places when they open up to communities. When citizens shape the programmes, more people turn to libraries for learning, digital support, trustworthy information, events, and spaces to connect. Co-creation is the foundation of a library that reflects its community.

Library teams know that innovation often begins with something scrappy and simple: a cardboard mock-up, a rough outline, a test session, a conversation in the reading room. Prototyping helps you test assumptions and identify the minimum requirements for an idea to take shape, as the Prototyping workshop delivered by Changency reminded us. This process can feel long, and that’s normal. With your next idea, try to build a small prototype to check whether your hypotheses hold up.

For the first time, we also welcomed an inspiring group of socially oriented content creators and journalists, including Vee Kathivu, Nina Tame, Otilia Colceriu of EU&U, and the Gen Zette online newsroom, to join our Regional Summits.

Make sure to follow our social media channels for upcoming content that will introduce you to the 2025/26 initiatives in fresh, engaging ways!

As part of the Regional Summits, we also launched BUDDIES, an Erasmus+-funded project, working alongside The Europe Challenge. BUDDIES pairs library and community workers with mentors from other localities to support professional growth, builds a sustainable Europe-wide network of frontline community workers, and develops policy recommendations to help libraries better open up to their communities.

The 2025/26 edition is kindly supported by public funding through Arts Council England, by Fondazione Cariplo, the Scottish Library and Information Council, and is co-funded by the European Union.

The 2025/26 programme is implemented by:

Special thanks go to the Municipality of Cinisello Balsamo for hosting The Europe Challenge 2025/26 Regional Summit in Italy, and to the Swiss Cottage Library in London for hosting the Regional Summit in the United Kingdom.