Creative Bureaucracy Festival 2025: Innovation and Inspiration on a New Level

19 June 2025

Under Berlin’s radiant sky, this year’s Creative Bureaucracy Festival took place on 5 June 2025 — inviting everyone to be amazed, to exchange ideas, and to think ahead together. Like last year, the Liveability project was there in person. Over 2,100 participants on-site, more than 2,000 tuning in via livestream, and more than 200 speakers from over 30 countries — not only from across Europe but also from America, India and many other regions — created a vibrant and international atmosphere. The eighth edition of the festival was more lively and inspiring than ever. The Creative Bureaucracy Festival is considered the largest festival for innovation in the public sector — a global meeting point for people from administration, politics, civil society and culture working together to future-proof public institutions.

Culture and Creativity as Drivers of Urban Development

For us, the Liveability team, the festival once again provided a familiar resonance space: this was particularly evident in the session Cities Ahead – Why Urban Transformation Needs Culture and Creativity at the Core, held in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut. Together, Charles Landry, the festival president, Jonathan Roth (Cultural Manager, City Administration, Rüsselsheim), Antonia Blau (Director of the Goethe-Institut Madrid), Nico Degenkolb (Consultant, Goethe-Institut) and Edyta Ruta (Urban Culture Institute – City of Weaves) discussed how culture and creativity can serve as engines for urban development. Jonathan Roth shared vivid examples of successful and unconventional urban design from Rüsselsheim — an inspiring impulse for us, especially regarding the activation of vacant spaces and the revitalisation of city centres as a key building block for sustainable and liveable cities. We truly felt at home.

Workshops on Regenerative Alliances and Living Infrastructures

In the Academy workshops, hosted by Politics for Tomorrow, we delved into two formats: the first workshop Regenerative Alliances for Thriving Commons focused on perceiving public commons such as water, urban greenery or data not just as resources to be safeguarded but as spaces to be co-created and cared for collectively. Particularly inspiring was the exchange with Blasius Walch from Politics for Tomorrow, project partner in the Liveability project, and Hans Karssenberg from Placemaking Europe, who presented the Berlin example Vollgut: a cooperative on the site of a former brewery in Neukölln that creates spaces for culture, social activities and small businesses. An inspiring model for community-oriented urban development.

The second workshop Co-Valuing Living Infrastructures explored how urban infrastructures can be understood as complex metabolic relationships and how their invisible values — such as care work or ecological repair — can be brought to the forefront. This session was moderated by Caroline Paulick-Thiel (Director of Politics for Tomorrow), who steered the discussion with her insightful facilitation.

Before the festival wrapped up with a closing session featuring Johanna Sieben, AC Coppens and Charles Landry, the Goethe-Institut hosted the session A Culture for Change. This explored how cultural institutions can balance participatory outreach with often still hierarchical internal structures in order to remain fit for the future.

After the official programme, the party really kicked off: with a cold drink in hand, networking and conversations continued late into the evening — in the idyllic courtyard garden of the Festsaal Kreuzberg. With good vibes, new contacts and fresh ideas packed in our bags, we returned home inspired — already looking forward to more exchange and insights from creatives, urban changemakers and agile administrative minds at the next Creative Bureaucracy Festival on 11 June 2026!