For three days, 24 representatives of civil society organisations and public institutions from across Bosnia and Herzegovina came together in Sarajevo to learn about the Council of Europe's standards and tools on participatory democracy. As an introduction, the main findings of the recently published study on civil participation in decision-making processes in Bosnia and Herzegovina by Prof Adis Arapović from the University of Sarajevo were presented. The study provides a good overview of the state of participation in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as on the areas which need further improvement in order to reach an active engagement of citizens in political decision-making. After an introduction into concepts and different levels of participation, by experts from European Association for Local Democracy (ALDA), the participants simulated a participatory consultation process on the construction of a skate park in a fictive municipality. For this purpose, the representatives of civil society had to slip into the role of a representative of a public institution and vice versa, so that all participants were encouraged to adopt a new perspective. The presentation of the project and case study of the Citizens' Assembly of Mostar" (see here), which was recently successfully implemented by the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, served as an inspiring best practice example of deliberative democracy and was received with great interest by the participants. Participants left the Academy with a better understanding of participatory democracy, with a good overview of innovative tools and an increased motivation to try out new ways based on the learned good practice examples.