The roundtable took place on 18th September 2023, at the European Commission in Brussels. The people who participated include people from research funders, people with interest at local, national and European level, people who are involved in the engagement of civil society. Policies can be at universities, municipalities, R&I organisations, national bodies and European.
Georgios Papanagnou opened the event with a review of public engagement in research and within Horizon Europe. The reasons for engagement: contribute to excellence, effectiveness, and trust of society in science. These aspects are reflected in policy documents, for example in the “Pact for R&I development in Europe” in the new ERA policy agenda, and in the Horizon programme. In Horizon Europe, the principles of public engagement and citizen science are an integral part of the programme. It is a principle, operational objectives, and in additional incentives or obligations within a specific call. There is now a common template that expects project coordinator to report in their projects.
Within the key impact pathways, principle 6 is the one that emphasises citizen engagement. They have a theory of change with short-term, medium-term (3 years after the project) and long-term (10 years after the project) expectations of impact on changes in engagement. In Horizon Europe, there are elements of co-design, co-production, and co-evaluation. The European Citizen Science project is important in this context and the results of the Mutual Learning Excercise on citizen science with 11 member states. Another new MLE is looking at Public engagement which is developing, and they hope to launch it soon with a focus on national experiences on governance of co-design, co-creation, and co-assessment. The priority areas are noticing divergent practices; good practices and challenges of implementation, and in framework conditions (infrastructure, competencies, incentives, rewards); good practices in policy framework across the ERC. The expectation is to have common policy recommendations and more coordinated policy across the ERC. The MLE will refer to MoRRI and SuperMoRRI outcomes. The challenge is the substance and sustainability of public engagement – short-lived or limited in scope, so how to make it more inclusive and how it is integrated into institutions and people. Issues such as inclusion, and partial or biased participation, and embedded into the way people and institutions operate.
Maya van den Berg and Alessio Spera presented the context of INCENTIVE and TIME4CS. The INCENTIVE project looked at fourth-generation universities – moving from focus on education, then education and research, then education and research and entrepreneurial about the utilisation of knowledge. The fourth generation is pushing on engagement (Oztel 2019). Especially looking how engagement happens in universities. INCENTIVE is framed around these concepts and the development of citizen science hubs in universities. This is because citizens are already getting in touch and asking science to engage with them. The organisations that are involved are across Europe (U Twente, UABm Vilnius Tech Aristotle University). The concept is of citizen science hub creating different innovations that support the institutional process. Citizen science hub is a space where citizens, scientists, and people from different groups can join forces for scientific excellence and horizontal deliberation. There is an effort for ensuring the sustainability of institutional change. There are issues about the national context and what universities and researchers can operate. They also looked at changes that are done within the context of changes that are already happening. They aimed to include societal partners from the start, working in a transdisciplinary way – noticing the need for time to create a common ground. They noticed challenges and the complexities of integration within existing practices.
Alessio explained TIME4CS and the concept of achieving institutional change with a structure of front-runner – organisations with long experience in citizen science, and implementers – RPOs who want to adopt citizen science. There is a mechanism of knowledge transfer with different intervention areas: research, education, support resources, policy and assessment. In each area, there are specific actions that are done to lead to institutional change. The basis of the work looked at about 40 universities and identified 14 conditions that influence adoption. The project identified different stages in the adoption of citizen science.
The INCENTIVE recommendation look at different stages of the process with attention to mission and scope, governance, stakeholders’ engagement, and impact and sustainability. The policy recommendations are paying attention to the establishment, implementation, and sustainability aspects of the creation of a science hub. The policy brief identifies lessons from the different organisations.
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