M⁴D²: not a chemical compound, though a solid approach. Here is what it stands for.

• A Multi-stage process: The M4D2 Participatory Spaces need to accommodate different ways of managing the three main steps of any deliberative practice: inputs, throughputs and outputs. This means flexibility in the recruitment and selection processes, different facilitation strategies, and different kinds of outputs.

• A Multilevel process: Once in place, the M4D2 Participatory Spaces are expected to be used by officials and representatives of the civil society at the local, national and European level to design their own deliberative experience. EUComMeet starts at both ends of the institutional practices, scaling up and down. It scales up from the local to the national level and then to the European level and it scales down from the European level, down to the national and then the local level.

• A Multi-mode system: The M4D2 Participatory Spaces will be flexible in the selection and combination of different modes of interaction, combining online video, audio and text-based interaction, while also alternating human and automated moderation.

• A Multilingual setting: The M4D2 Participatory Spaces will approach the multilingualism challenge to a truly European deliberative space. We count on available and in-progress projects to equip the deliberative platform with an automated system of translation and transcription.

• A Dynamic co-design process: The M4D2 Participatory Spaces will be embedded in the existing political systems centred around political representation. For this purpose, EuComMeet will bring into the experimenting stage local, national and European policymakers, so that a regular, periodic interaction between stakeholders, citizens, experts and policymakers will be made possible.

• A Deliberative process: The M4D2 Participatory Spaces envisage deliberative theories, experiments and practices not only as an ideal to which democracy should aim, but also as a set of concrete methodological tools that, being theoretically inspired, can foster opportunities for more constructive and positive forms of democratic communication.