03/08/2026
Carlota Pombar Rodríguez
Not many people know what it means to lobby. Everyone knows political decisions matter, though.
Not many people know what it means to lobby. Most don’t even realize they’re already doing it themselves.
Not many people know how to do good lobbying. This July, The Good Lobby Summer Academy got more than 40 of us together to figure that out. It’s a nonprofit start up committed to equalize access to power by enhancing the advocacy capacity of civil society and making corporate lobbying more accountable.
That’s what I’m taking with me.
A few months ago I saw The Good Lobby was offering scholarships for the Summer Academy. I didn’t think twice. I applied. As a European activist with experience across the public and private sectors, communication, and academia, I could not think of a better place for all of that to come together, a place to learn from good practices and understand how to actually influence decision-making processes. I wanted to sit with people from different fields and actually understand what good lobbying looks like. Spend days arguing, contributing, throwing ideas around.
The confirmation email came in June. From July 20th to 23rd, I would be in Bilbao with Alberto Alemanno’s team and a lot of other people who know what they’re doing. My expectations were high. They held up.
Four days, and the mix of people was impressive: young fellows doing research, doing comms, people from big international companies, from smaller ones, from EU institutions, academics, people from civil society. Different backgrounds, all showing up wanting to listen and wanting to talk. People from all over Europe, some from Asia, some from the Americas, trying to figure out what lobbying actually is, and more importantly, how to do it well.
We covered the bigger questions too: the governance of AI, the environment, the energy transition, taxes, children’s rights, social media, food, consumption. Experts would open things up, push you to think differently, and then just… let the room take it from there.
It’s hard to find spaces anymore where people actually disagree out loud, where the debate gets heated, but nobody loses respect for anybody else. I liked that. I liked the arguments that made you uncomfortable.Isn’t the job of universities themselves?
And it wasn’t all inside a room. We got out too. Pintxos, walking around Bilbao, getting a feel for the city, its people. Some of the best conversations happened there, honestly, over a drink and dinner, after arguing about AI regulation for six hours straight.
Would I have liked more young people there? More scholarship holders? More promotion so it reached further? Yes.
But maybe that’s the trade-off. Small group, but you actually meet people. People you’ll keep talking to after this is over.
I’m leaving with new friends, new ideas, new things to research, new stuff to post about. And I already look forward to going back.
Written by Carlota Pombar Rodríguez