Domain expert panel: Challenges and Opportunities

his report presents the first-year experience of engaging the Domain Expert Panel (DEP) within Work Package 6 of the Horizon Europe project Larpocracy. The Domain Expert Panel brings together professionals working in larp-adjacent fields ranging from education to cultural institutions, artistic practice, and civic engagement. Their role within the project aims to provide external perspectives that can inform the research and design activities across the different Work Packages, as well as to act as “emissaries” exploring the potential application of the project’s methods and insights within their own professional contexts and practices. The deliverable focuses on the initial phase of the engagement process and the lessons emerging from the first year of implementation. It presents the strategy adopted and the activities implemented for the DEP, analyses the challenges encountered in sustaining its participation and outlines the adjustments to the engagement model that have been identified for the next implementation phases of the project. The activities documented in this report include preliminary one-to-one meetings with DEP members aimed at mapping expertise and expectations, the participation of the panel in the pan-project symposium in Uppsala (March 2025) and follow-up initiatives designed to connect the DEP with the ongoing work of the consortium. This initial phase brought to light several structural and organizational challenges in maintaining consistent involvement of the DEP. These included the difficulty of aligning the panel’s participation with the evolving timelines of the Work Packages, the diversity of expectations and availability among DEP members, as well as the limited opportunities for sustained interaction within the consortium due to their roles as outside experts. The process highlighted the importance of adopting a differentiated, multi-level approach capable of accommodating varying levels of availability, expertise, and institutional contexts. As the project progresses and a growing number of events, activities, and deliverables become available for experimentation and feedback, new opportunities are emerging for the DEP to engage more directly with the work of the consortium. In this perspective, linking participation to practical experimentation and concrete activities is expected to support stronger involvement from panel members, enabling them to relate project insights to their own professional environments. The DEP can also further develop as a collaborative interface between research and practice and as a space for shared learning. In addition, the discussions with the DEP helped identify several key thematic challenges and areas for further exploration, including: designing larp experiences that foster transformation and democratic learning; supporting the transferability and institutional adoption of larp-based methods, which in turn supports Larpocracy work on policy recommendations; reaching and including diverse and politically heterogeneous audiences; strengthening facilitation skills and capacity building for practitioners.