The relationship between science and society has undergone significant changes in the last decades, gaining increasing importance as a research field. To reflect on how the scientific ecosystem could better take societal views into consideration, without taking for granted its automatic consensus, a specific policy framework was developed by the European Commission (EC), namely Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), as the conceptual framework supporting and guiding research and innovation approaches to involve society in science and innovation very upstream in the processes of research and Innovation (R&I) and therefore align its outcomes with the values of society. In essence, by empowering responsible actors across R&I systems (researchers, policymakers, businesses and innovators, CSOs, educators), RRI aims to reduce the gap between science and society. Among other different RRI aspects, public engagement (in all its forms and applications, including Citizen Science) has a strong structural transformative power at different layers of R&I processes: it allows to incorporate diversity of views into problem formulation and research questions; it also allows to share, transfer and practice scientific culture, contributing to the challenge of science education. In this sense, the EC has outlined Institutional Change as a key strategy to address the challenges of RRI. Governing and driving the transformations affecting science and innovation as well their positive and negative implications require, to a variable extent, the implementation of institutional changes in research organizations.
In this wide context, TIME4CS aimed at facilitating a way in which the scientific ecosystem could better take societal views into consideration by supporting Research Performing Organizations (RPOs) in defining and implementing sustainable institutional changes that can lead to a better and more effective engagement of citizens in research and innovation. To facilitate this process, TIME4CS has identified 4 Intervention Areas (IAs) that alone or combined can stimulate the institutional changes necessary to promote public engagement and Citizen Science in R&I activities. The 4 IAs are: Research, Education and Awareness, Support resources and Infrastructure, Policy and Assessment. For each IA, the TIME4CS consortium has identified a preliminary set of Grounding Actions (GAs), i.e. concrete actions that are recommended to undertake to achieve institutional changes. 3 TIME4CS RPOs with experience in the field (Front-Runners), interacted with and mentor 4 RPOs willing to face the challenge of introducing CS in their structures. These organizations (Implementers), developed tailored roadmaps including a specific set of GAs to carry out, benefitting of the constant support of Front-Runners in the framework of a mutual learning and knowledge exchange tailored programme.
Within this guiding framework, the specific objectives of the project resulted as follow:
• To increase knowledge on the actions leading to Institutional Changes in RPOs;
• To support partner RPOs implementing concrete actions that will in turn lead to Institutional Changes;
• To build an overall community of relevant stakeholders in the field of CS, through specific engagement actions;
• To give new value to the need for a new, flexible governance systems within RPOs, raising awareness about it.
TIME4CS project comes to a conclusion with a comprehensive set of new knowledge, recommendations, tools and resources which, on one hand contributed accomplishing the project’s specific objectives and kicking off the Implementers’ journeys towards their long-term institutional change, and on the other hand represents a valuable legacy for the community, RPOs all around the world willing to implement CS methodology, future projects and initiatives.
In addition to a solid knowledge base framework, which was established in the early phases of the project, tangible support was given to TIME4CS RPOs in the implementation of a wide range of actions leading to institutional changes. The Knowledge Sharing and Mutual Learning plan, and the Mentoring Programme proved to be extremely effective in this sense, with all the related events, workshops and visits developed hand-in-hand with the tailoring of the Institutional Roadmaps for implementing organisations. Nonetheless, a dynamic and solid community was also established and continuously consolidated, with the engagement of both implementing organisations’ stakeholders, and external ones.
Overall, TIME4CS implementation represented a success story of an impactful, well-executed EU-funded project, and although there is still much to do to address the challenges of RRI, many things have been done already, and a substantial portion of the process has been put in place, with the four implementing organisation being the living proof of this.
