Engaging public in the policy making in becoming increasingly interesting to policy makers. They have recognised the positive effects of public engagement such as being better informed about the opinions, needs and interest of the citizens and reaching a better acceptability of the policy measures among the people.

 The PE2020-project was offered a possibility to present the work and the ideas behind the project in a meeting in the Prime Minister’s Office with some of the advisors of the Prime Minister in Helsinki October the 21st. The visit was inspiring (hopefully mutually but at least to us!) because the PM’s Office was so well informed about the possibilities of public engagement and the company present clearly recognised the importance of engaging citizens in different ways and in various topics. (As a Finnish citizen this was also personally quite encouraging: to live in a country with such competent ministerial advisors!)

The meeting bore fruit the next week when the Prime Minister’s Office organised a short seminar October the 31st continuing the discussions about the topic with a guest speaker Edward Andersson from Involve presenting Sciencewise, the UK’s national centre for public dialogue in policy making involving science and technology issues.

– Kaisa –