Clever minds, new input: We are happy to welcome four new Fellows, two Scientific Advisory Board Members and reinforcement to our office team. Among them are new faces and old acquaintances of our progressive network.

Trust matters more than self-interest: Our survey conducted among roughly 4,800 participants in April and May 2020 shows that the discussion about easing restrictions is not so much about the varying degrees to which individuals are affected, but rather about the degree of trust in public institutions in general.

Most employees say that they work longer and more productively at home than in the office, yet some also suffer from loneliness and isolation. Nevertheless, a large proportion (56 percent) does not wish to return to full-time attendance; a majority of those surveyed would prefer to work from home two to three days a week. On the question of a legal right to mobile work, the population is divided. This is the result of a representative study by the Cluster of Excellence “The Politics of Inequality” at the University of Konstanz, published in cooperation with the think tank Das Progressive Zentrum.

Over the course of three years, the project New Urban Progress is set to promote an exchange of ideas on how to deal with local challenges in Germany and the USA. It focuses on the role of cities in inclusive growth and sustainable innovation.

Das Progressive Zentrum signs the call “Learning from the crisis: empower civil society organisations!” and calls for an active digital ecosystem that offers real choices.

Lucie Kretschmer will support Das Progressive Zentrum in questions of religious policy as a Visiting Fellow in the programme Future of Democracy.

Das Progressive Zentrum has a new Board of Directors: Michael Miebach, founder of the think tank and longtime board member was elected as Chair for the first time. Tobias Dürr is passing him the baton after resigning after 12 years of successful and groundbreaking work. The Deputy Chair is Judith Siller, who will bring new perspectives to Das Progressive Zentrum. Additionally, the Board of Directors includes the Commissioner for Integration and Migration of the State of Berlin, Katarina Niewiedzial, as well as the former Head of the Brandenburg State Chancellery, Thomas Kralinski.

After innovating its governing structure, Das Progressive Zentrum is now led by an extended executive team, which is comprised of the Executive Director as well as three Heads of Programmes, the Head of Office and the Head of Communications.

The study provokes a socio-political debate on the future of work. Based on interviews with 50 experts, the authors identify four core-challenges, give ten policy recommendations and sketch a concept for an inclusive digital transformation.

The new policy brief by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) & Das Progressive Zentrum (DPZ), on behalf of the German Federal Foreign Office, emphasises the need for a Just Transition and a greater role for the foreign policy community in fighting climate change. The paper was presented at the German Foreign Office on 24 September 2019.

We look back: at the Progressive Governance Symposium 2019, Europe Listens and other exciting projects – and into the future: with new team members, new fellows and new impulses for our liberal and social democracy. And all that in a new creative design!

Executive Director Dominic Schwickert reflects on the months leading up to the European elections and on reorganising the team. An editorial for the upcoming newsletter 1/2019.

Learn what our new fellows and colleagues contribute and what they seek to achieve with us.

Among the guests are Maja Göpel, Robert Habeck, Marije Laffeber, Tim Ryan, Stephan Weil and many more leading and emerging academics, activists and decision-makers from Europe and the US that are coming together to discuss their ideas for rejuvenating the progressive movement. How can progressive politics counter nationalism? How can we shift to a more sustainable and inclusive economic system? How can we ensure that everyone has a share in progress?

We commemorate the brave European and Democrat Paweł Adamowicz, murdered in January 2019.

Das Progressive Zentrum has scouted innovative projects by politicians in Germany. A European jury has nominated nine of those for the finals. The price will be awarded in Vienna on 17 November. Even though all nominees follow different approaches, they are united by one theme.

The Innovation in Politics Awards are presented annually to honour courageous and creative political work throughout Europe – regardless of party or country. This year, 9 political projects from Germany made it to the finals. An international jury of 1,053 European citizens selected 80 finalists from more than 600 nominations. The winners will be announced at a gala event in November in Vienna.

A total of 16 outstanding progressive thinkers and practitioners will add to the intellectual life within the think-tank in our three programme areas “International Relations”, “Future of Democracy” and “Structural Change”, and elaborate on new thematic threads such as “Digital Democracy”, “Corporate Citizenship” and “Democratic Debate Culture”.

For the first time, three French-German think tanks join forces to reflect upon the EU digital technologies strategy: Renaissance Numérique, EuropaNova, and Das Progressive Zentrum. As a concrete realization of this partnership, the think tanks are launching a common series of conferences in both France and Germany: “EU Digital Challenges”.

On 28 June, the Democracy Lab of Das Progressive Zentrum will host the second Innocracy – Conference in Berlin.