[28 August – 02 September 2012, Vis] The third edition of Green Academy 2020 under the title ”Common Future of Europe – Future of the Commons in Europe” on the island of Vis brought 170 participants from around 15 countries together around an intense program of lectures, workshops and panel discussions that aimed to create clear linkages between the multiple crisis that Europe is facing and the notion of the commons as a possible terrain for a new future for society to emerge. Organised jointly by Heinrich Böll Stiftung Zagreb and Green Europe Foundation and supported by Open Society Foundations, National Foundation for Civil Society Development and many other local partner organisations, this has provided a platform for the Commons to be explored as a new interpretative paradigm for asserting a more direct (‘democratic’) control by citizens.

STEALTH has specifically contributed to the discussion group on urban commons, which with over 40 participants emerged as one of the most populated sections of the Green Academy. For one, as the participants quickly noted, as urban commons remain a largely underexplored terrain infected with a large dosis of expectations – in urgent need to be pioneered, tested and verified.

For us, the Green Academy has been of exceptional interest. Many of the discussions around direct participation in the making and governing of our urban future have been touched, as well as alternative visions of prosperity, growth and development. It parallels with many of the topics that have been on our path in our projects, and under the conceptualisation of Commons seem to get interlinked in an intriguing and potentially promising way. And last but not least, it directly links to the post-master program ‘In Search of Common Ground’ we have set up in collaboration with Henrietta Palmer at KKH, Stockholm.