From June 14 th to 16 th, ARC Fund hosted an expert and stakeholder workshop as part of the CIVISTI project. The experts and stakeholders present included natural and social scientists, policy-analysts, and researchers in public and private research institutes that are involved in research policy making and implementation. The workshop presented experts from all over Europe with future ‘visions’ that European citizens have for improving the quality of life of Europeans through science, technology and innovation. There were 69 such visions, developed at an earlier stage in the project, which represent the desires of more than 150 citizens in seven European countries.
The experts and stakeholders at the workshop made recommendations for the realization of these visions in the form of both research and innovation priorities and policies, as well as recommendations in non-scientific policy areas that may help to support such realization. This was done with a specific focus on the upcoming Framework Programmes. On the first day of this two day process, over 100 recommendations were made, of which 30, chosen by the experts, were further elaborated on the second day. After the conclusion of the workshop, these 30 recommendations were quantitatively scored by the experts so that they can be presented to the citizens who originally developed the visions, in a prioritized way. Since the ‘open space’ approach to translating citizen desires into research and policy suggestions is quite innovative in itself, the experts also gave constructive suggestions on how to best translate citizen views into research and policy priorities.
The CIVISTI project (‘Citizen Visions on Science, Technology and Innovation’) is supported by the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Commission from autumn, 2008, and lasts for 30 months. It is coordinated by The Danish Board of Technology in partnership with organizations from Finland, Belgium, Malta, Bulgaria, Hungary and Austria.
The CIVISTI project is aimed at identifying emerging and potential opportunities and challenges in European science and technology using a future oriented participatory process that combines citizen knowledge, experience and desires with the knowledge of research policy of experts and stakeholders. It is the purpose of CIVISTI to better align policy outputs with the desires of the European citizenry. The overall goal of CIVISTI is to facilitate the improvement in democratic accountability by including citizens in the policy formulation process at the same time as they improve the effectiveness of policy itself by incorporating citizen views.
For additional information please contact:
Zoya Damianova, e-mail zoya.damianova@online.bg
