events / 29 September 2025

The Global Forum on Depolarization

Event

25/09/2025 - 26/09/2025

More than 80 global experts and partners from around the world – including most of the members of our Depolarization Community of Practice – gathered at IFIT’s headquarters in Barcelona for the first Global Forum on Depolarization.

This new annual flagship event – a first of its kind – has a combined knowledge-sharing and problem-solving format, seeking to function as a ‘conveyor belt’ for innovative new practice and research on depolarization.

During this year’s Forum we:

Discussed what is currently known and unknown about depolarization;
Reviewed a draft depolarization strategies toolkit;
Learned of new depolarization discoveries;
Debated whether a global field of depolarization is warranted;
Examined depolarization options between countries in two global regions;
Heard about depolarization challenges and options within nine individual countries; and
Discussed the depolarization roles of specific sectors such as philanthropy, media, and the diaspora.

Together, the IFIT Depolarization Community of Practice and the IFIT Global Forum on Depolarization represent the newest phase of the Global Initiative on Polarization: a multiyear collaboration launched in 2022 by IFIT and the Ford Foundation and now expanding to include additional funding partners, such as the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Templeton World Charity Foundation and Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.