The seminar of the School, held as part of the core programme «Sapere Aude: Freedom and Responsibility,» took place in Riga with support from the Swedish Institute (Detta projekt finansieras av Svenska institutet), the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics, and the Council of Europe. About 65 representatives of civil society, experts, journalists, human‑rights defenders, diplomats, and academics from the EU, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Central Asia, and the South Caucasus gathered to address the fundamental questions that the School sets for itself.
Through workshops, roundtables, and panel sessions participants discussed how to protect democracies in global decline; the importance of the rule of law and human rights under attack; how civil society can lay foundations for a new political culture and demand participation in global processes; and how to speak about values amid impunity and power politics. Debates covered situations in Ukraine, Belarus, resistance and de‑colonial movements inside Russia, and reflected on responsibility toward others, collective agency, justice, inclusion, visibility of violence, solidarity, and resistance. Programme highlights included sessions with Valdis Birkavs on «Why Democracy?», Torbjörn Becker on «Economy and Politics in the Times of Crises,» a round table «After the Truce» with Alexander Morozov, panels on international law with Nils Mužnieks and Gleb Bogush, a global outlook by Michael Sohlman, an AI and civil‑society lab led by Denis Yagodin and Nikolay Kvantaliani, and discussions on values and memory with Vasily Zharkov, Diana Pinto, Kirill Martynov, Elena Lukyanova and others. The seminar closed with reflections by Lena Nemirovskaya and Yuri Senokosov, underscoring the School’s continued commitment to defending freedom, responsibility and human rights.