All posts by Kaisa Matschoss

European Conference: Engaging Society in Responsible Research and Innovation: What’s Next?

21/12/2015News feedanticipation, Engage2020, inclusiveness, reflectiveness, responsiveness, RRIKaisa Matschoss

The PE2020 consortium took part in a two-day conference Engaging Society in Responsible Research and Innovation: What’s Next? which took place 9^th – 10^th November 2015 in Brussels and was organised by the Engage2020 project (http://www.engage2020.eu).

The future of the European science and technology field depends on Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). Wider engagement with European citizens, stakeholders and users is a crucial part of this emerging landscape. Regardless of what role you play in research and innovation in the future you will need to consider how societal actors can work with you to address societal challenges.
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PE2020 project consortium in Vilnius, Lithuania

09/11/2015News feedbalanced inclusion, conceptual model, dynamic governance, effectiveness, research policy cycle, responsiveness, transparencyKaisa Matschoss

The PE2020 project consortium got together in the beautiful capital of Lithuania, Vilnius, November 2-3, 2015. It was great to see the partners again especially as the project has reached a very exciting phase! Workpackage 2 is finalizing its work on the conceptual model of PE across the dynamically governed research policy cycle and related participatory performance factors. We are very glad to be able to soon publish the new conceptual model designed by the consortium! So stay toned!

Photo by Evaldas Liutkus, © Creative commons, Flickr.com

Please find here the first policy brief of the project that is aimed at introducing the reader to the aims of the PE2020 project and to the work done so far. There, we also shortly present our initial ideas of the core factors that enhance the factors for successful PE related to the quality of governance and research, as well as to better interaction and communication. These are transparency, balanced inclusion and improvement of policies in terms of effectiveness and responsiveness.

-Kaisa-

Future Earth Finland Living lab event discussed the challenges of sustainable urbanization

30/10/2015News feedFuture Earth, global change research, Living Labs, PE pilots, Sustainable urbanizationKaisa Matschoss

Urbanization is a global megatrend and, in the future, the majority of people will live in cities also in Finland. In September 2015, Future Earth Finland gathered an extensive group of experts from different backgrounds to discuss the challenges of sustainable urbanization. The event was part of the “Living lab network for global change research” run by Future Earth Finland. Future Earth Finland is a pilot project of PE2020.

Changes in nature and societies are interlinked

The day started with a talk by professor Markku Kulmala, a renowned climate scientist and the Chair of Future Earth Finland. Kulmala stated that if we want to tackle the grand challenges of our lifetime, we must grasp the big picture of the dynamic interactions between nature and societies.

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Complex environmental issues require new approaches

18/09/2015News feeddemocratic deliberation, governing biodiversity, World Wide Views, WWViewsKaisa Matschoss

A new book on the emerging practice of global citizen consultation and deliberation provides tips and tools for increasing citizen participation and developing environmental protection in international politics.

The PE2020 project organises together with the Consumer Society Research Centre at the University of Helsinki a seminar “Public Engagement in Decision Making Related to the Global Environmental Policy”. In this seminar, a new book will be released that is based on a method that has been recognised as an innovative new way of engagement by the PE2020 project consortium.

In Governing Biodiversity through Democratic Deliberation (Routledge, 2015), edited by Docent Mikko Rask and Professor Richard Worthington (from Pomona College, Claremont, California), an international group of 30 researchers evaluates the role of new deliberative processes in international environmental policy.

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First global change Townhall meeting

10/09/2015News feedFuture Earth, global change research, PE pilots, research priorities, townhall meetingKaisa Matschoss

hereIn May 2015, Future Earth Finland organised together with the PE2020 project a Townhall meeting to discuss research priorities related to global change in Finland. The first Future Earth Finland Townhall meeting gathered over 60 participants from different fields of science from universities and research institutes, and included stakeholders from ministries, private companies, interest group organizations, and NGOs.

The objective of the workshop was to gain deeper understanding of global challenges in Finland and especially to increase the knowledge and collaboration to influence research agendas and research funding at the national level. Take a look at the post of the Future Earth Finland presenting the main results of the first global change Townhall meeting: Future Earth Finland blog.

The efforts to deepen the understanding of the research needs related to global change problemmatic will continue in form of series of Future Earth Townhall meetings. The next will be organised in Tampere, Finland, in September. The focus of the second Townhall meeting will be to continue with the topic that was found important in the first meeting: sustainable cities. You can find more information here (in Finnish language).

Catalogue of innovative public engagement activities

03/09/2015News feedcatalogue of innovative PE casesKaisa Matschoss

The Pe2020 project welcomes you to take a look at the newly published catalogue of innovative public engagement activities!

The catalogue presents first-hand information gained directly from the organisers of the most innovative activities in Europe. The PE2020 project gratefully thanks the organisers of these cases for their valuable input in providing the consortium with first-hand information on their activities, without which the information included in the catalogue would have been difficult or impossible to gain.

You can download the catalogue here.

Pros and Cons for Public Engagement

25/08/2015News feedbalanced inclusion, effectiveness, responsiveness, successful PE, transparencyKaisa Matschoss

Currently, we are finalising the report related to enhancing and hindering factors for public engagement (PE) combining dynamically governed research policy cycle and participatory performance model. Within the frame of literature review and survey analysis, we identified driving forces and barriers to get people engaged in science and research policy.

As a result, we collected a list of core enhancing factors for successful PE, which is related to quality of governance and research, better interaction and communication: 1) transparency; 2) balanced inclusion; and 3) improvement of policies (effectiveness & responsiveness). Moreover, PE is more successful when it is repeated, i.e. it helps to reorient public towards self-organisation and create overall dynamics. Despite promising keywords for the success of PE, inevitably, we are faced with barriers such as passivity and fatigue of lay people to get engaged. Continue reading Pros and Cons for Public Engagement →

Public engagement workshop for early career scientists in Riga, Latvia

17/07/2015News feedearly career scientists, PE pilots, public engagement, science-society dialogueKaisa Matschoss

What are the incentives to take part in science-society dialogue? Does my research have any impact? How could I efficiently interact with stakeholders and citizens? These were some of the questions that we (Mikko Rask and Maria Pietilä from the University of Helsinki) used in order to spur early career scientists’ imagination and to entice them to attend a workshop on public engagement in research in Riga, Latvia.

PE2020 had the pleasure of organizing this futures workshop on public engagement as part of the 10th Baltic Sea Science Congress the 16th of June, 2015. The workshop was organized in collaboration with BONUS, the European Union’s joint Baltic Sea research and development programme. BONUS is one of the research contexts for PE2020 in piloting innovative public engagement processes related to the societal challenges identified in Horizon 2020, the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation.

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How do you see the role of stakeholder engagement in challenges posed by global change?

03/07/2015News feedcontext tailoring workshop, innovative public engagement, Living LabsKaisa Matschoss

Check out the video for interviews of experts about public engagement!

The PE2020-project organised in April a context tailoring workshop about living labs and public engagement. Some of the experts participating into the workshop expressed their expert opinions related to public engagement.

You will hear answers to questions such as:

What would be the benefits if research would take into account stakeholder engagement in greater extent?

Does public engagement have a role in social Innovation and reflective learning and why?

What kinds of problems do you see in science and governance?

How do you see that public or stakeholder engagement (for example in living labs) could find answers to societal challenges and the development of technology?

Please listen to Tanja Suni, Iina Koskinen, Maija Sirola, Timo Hämäläinen, Tony Gaye and Erkki Ormala and share us your views in the comment page!

Public engagement and stakeholders for EC Joint programming 02062015

11/06/2015News feedJoint programming initiative, Science with and for Society, stakeholder engagementKaisa Matschoss

Joint programming initiatives (JPIs) are supported by the European Commission (EC) and its European Research Area (ERA). JPIs aim to pool national research efforts in order to make better use of Europe’s public R&D resources and to tackle common European challenges more effectively in some key areas. JPIs are structured and strategic processes, whereby Member States agree, on a voluntary basis and in a partnership approach, on common visions and Strategic Research Agendas (SRA) to address major societal challenges.

© Sébastien Bertrand. Flickr (www.flickr.com/photos/) This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.

The JPI More Years, Better Lives, (MYBL) on demographic change, arranged a seminar on stakeholders of the JPIs and the public engagement dimensions of the JPIs on Tuesday 2^nd of June 2015 at the premises of EC DG for Research and Innovation in Brussels. The seminar gathered researchers from various disciplines like neurogenetics, marine biology, climate and demographic change just to name a few. These researchers are connected to a number of JPI’s. The seminar attracted also stakeholders of the JPI’s. These stakeholders represented various actors, for instance funding agencies, citizen organisations and governments. The seminar was chaired by Anne-Sophie Parent from AGE Platform Europe, a European network for organisations representing the 50+ population of Europe, and Angelika Poth-Mögele from the Council for European Municipalities and Regions. Continue reading Public engagement and stakeholders for EC Joint programming 02062015 →

PE2020 Public Engagement Innovations for Horizon 2020

Research project of the European Union FP7 Framework Programme