Three years ago TRANSFORM was launched, now it is time for conclusions.
The Europen project is putting RRI (Responsible research and innovation) principles into practice through new forms of local participatory decision-making within the Smart Specialisation Strategies (S3).
The objective of this project is to set up a methodology involving society with multi-stakeholder engagement, create case studies applied to identified social innovations and introduce this approach to public-funded R&I.
Curious about how we integrate citizen participation in Research and Responsible Innovation?
Come listen, join the discussion and analysis at the occasion of the closing event, on Thursday 10 November.
We will talk about how, with our partners, the Université Catholique de Louvain - UCL and Be Participation, we were able to test various tools for citizen participation at different levels of innovation (policy) within government.
A brief note on TRANSFORM
Responsible research and innovation (RRI) require researchers, citizens, policymakers, businesses and non-profit organisations to participate in the research and innovation activities, reflecting their views, needs and aspirations.
The Brussels-Capital Region cluster’ pilot of TRANSFORM started with an exploration of circular economy, in a wide sense, with the selection of specific community needs and challenges to address, paying particular attention to sustainability and inclusiveness of the entire participatory process.
At the Brussels cluster level, two approaches were tried:
On the one hand, putting forward a 360° vision through citizen participation. The idea was to detect at an early stage the ecological and social effects of a food innovation through an academic research project.
On the other hand, a participatory process to map an ecosystem to understand the tensions between the social effects and environmental impacts of a regional actor operating around food waste recovery. Among other things, this enabled the identification of knowledge needs within this ecosystem.
The incentive role of the public authorities in the innovation activities for regional economic growth is very important in Brussels. Aligned with its societal challenges, the region has established Strategics Innovation Domains (SID) in the Regional Innovation Plan (PRI) for funding Research and Innovation, developed by Innoviris.
“Optimal use of resources” and “Social innovation, public innovation and social inclusion” are SID to which TRANSFORM activities organised in Brussels are strongly linked.
RRI dimensions are present in existing R&I initiatives of the Brussels region such as co-creation, a programme that supports the exploration, experimentation and production of co-created knowledge for urban resilience.
More information about the Regional Innovation Plan 2021-2027 here.
You can read more about project details and pilotes via the Transform website:
