Therefore, PEOPLES' has two major goals to contribute to building democracies of "high intensity":

(1) Boosting the debate and cross-pollination between participatory practices from different territories, keeping alive the memory of the experiments, both past and present.

(2) Promoting a reflection on the institutional transformations, aimed at a better understanding of the paradigmatic exchange related to local powers and relations of subsidiarity that connect with other levels of government, keeping a particular attention to the Portuguese context where PEOPLES' took shape.

The Portal aims to build an extensive virtual library of texts, theoretical and methodological reflections, research, critical essays, debates, images and sounds that can show the plurality of participatory practices existing around the world. In Portugal, in addition to the mentioned goals, PEOPLES' intend to gather qualitative and quantitative data that contribute to the debate on local authorities, through an across the-board approach to the political, social and economic contexts. The Observatory is built in a collective, permanent way and will be guided by the contributions of all who pass through here sharing practices, perspectives, voices and knowledge.