PAD is a Budapest-based organization responding to the interlinked challenges of environmental harm, social injustice, and marginalization through research, culture, and collective action. Founded in 2016, we are a pioneering actor in Central and Eastern Europe, addressing the structural inequalities that shape access to resources, services, and representation in both rural and urban environments.
We operate through a combination of research, policy analysis, education, advocacy, and socially engaged art grounded in research. Rather than starting from fixed tools or solutions, we begin with concrete environmental and social challenges and develop our methods through dialogue with those most directly affected. Our approach is always context-driven, participatory, and collaborative.
Since our founding, PAD has partnered with municipalities, grassroots groups, researchers, and cultural institutions to design policies, landscapes, and narratives that put equity and ecological regeneration at the center. We are always looking for collaborators who are ready to engage with complexity, build trust locally, and commit to long-term change—whether through research, policy, advocacy, art and design, or creative practice.
What We Do
Research and research-based advocacy, Socially engaged art projects, Education and awareness raising, Participatory planning and local interventions, Climate adaptation strategy and concept development, Policy networking and strategic consultancy, Expert consultations, concept development, and project implementation
Our Causes
PAD’s work is rooted in intersectional environmental justice. We explore the entanglements between social inequality and ecological transformation across diverse territories, with the aim of building more just, resilient, and caring futures. Our initiatives unfold across three interrelated thematic clusters:
PAD’s work is grounded in environmental justice and unfolds through a range of interdisciplinary practices. We focus on how inequality and ecological harm co-produce one another — and how this plays out across space, infrastructure, representation, and land use. Our initiatives are organized into three interlinked thematic clusters:
Territorial Peripheries and Environmental Inequality
We investigate how spatial segregation, infrastructural exclusion, and environmental harm reinforce systemic injustice. Through participatory research and community-centered interventions, we amplify local voices and challenge the unequal distribution of public services, health, housing, and mobility.
Regenerative Landscapes and Ecological Transformation
We engage with landscapes shaped by agriculture, industry, tourism, and extractive practices — including water-based and post-industrial territories. Together with local actors, we co-create regenerative land-use strategies, climate-adaptive interventions, and site-specific planning processes rooted in care and equity.
Imagination and Representation
We use cultural and artistic tools to reframe how inequality, ecological crisis, and marginalization are seen, understood, and debated. Through socially engaged art, public pedagogy, visual research, and storytelling, we support new ways of perceiving and responding to systemic challenges.