Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MOSAIC (Mission-Oriented SwafS to Advance Innovation through Co-creation)
Reporting period: 2021-01-01 to 2022-06-30
We live in a world where it is more important than ever to find concrete solutions to pressing health and environmental challenges. Every day, we see science and innovation rising to these global challenges, yet it is still not enough to solve the serious wicked problems we face. Multiple stakeholders involved in research and innovation need to address this complexity, including citizens. MOSAIC’s overall objective is to study, test and assess how solutions to big challenges such as the ones faced by the European Mission on achieving 100 climate-neutral cities by 2030 can be made possible. In particular, MOSAIC focuses on understanding how the full role of citizens in co-innovation can be met and fairly rewarded.
To do so, the project has been researching the enabling factors and challenges of quadruple helix co-creation initiatives in open innovations. This has been the first step to designing models of co-creation that guarantee an effective involvement of all parts of the quadruple helix and ensure an actual shift towards demand-driven innovation while impacting on the private sector. The project will test these models in two pilot cities - Gothenburg and Milan. Further, six cities will closely follow and replicate this process. Partners will monitor the effects of the co-creation activities by tracing both the impact on the participants in the co-creation activity and the outcome itself.
To do so, the project has been researching the enabling factors and challenges of quadruple helix co-creation initiatives in open innovations. This has been the first step to designing models of co-creation that guarantee an effective involvement of all parts of the quadruple helix and ensure an actual shift towards demand-driven innovation while impacting on the private sector. The project will test these models in two pilot cities - Gothenburg and Milan. Further, six cities will closely follow and replicate this process. Partners will monitor the effects of the co-creation activities by tracing both the impact on the participants in the co-creation activity and the outcome itself.
MOSAIC is well on track to deliver on all its objectives. This first period has been key to building solid foundations for its further expansion in the next 18 months.
The project management team is providing continued support to the successful delivery of all project activities and tasks, including an effective Data Management Plan, a Project handbook, regular partner meetings and regular reporting for effective monitoring as well as liaising with the EC and other EU-funded projects.
One of the main objectives so far has been to explore and review past and current co-creation experiences in order to analyse these experiences through the lens of open innovation and transform them into a mosaic of approaches and processes relevant to open and mission-oriented innovation. To do so, partners have conducted the MOSAIC experience review of 50 co-creation projects, analysing them according to (1) the processes and tools employed, (2) the sites and venues of co-creation and (3) the rationales of co-creation. This has provided the grounds necessary to develop the “MOSAIC co-creation approach” in this fast-evolving landscape of science and innovation policy. In addition, the project’s definition of co-creation which will serve as the guiding principle for the work ahead was developed.
The co-creation experience review was complemented, on one hand by the specificities of the Mission Area selected in MOSAIC (Climate neutral and smart cities) as well as other missions on the other hand. To achieve this partners have revised the mission-oriented policy landscape, its history and how it has evolved over the past decades. They have also summarised the goals and scope of the five Missions of Horizon Europe, with a particular emphasis on the MOSAIC Mission of focus. Another important focus of MOSAIC was to explore how to incentivise and fairly reward citizens taking part in quadruple helix innovation pathways. Eight structured interviews with MOSAIC cities have been conducted in this regard. The results were summarised in a project policy brief (D3.3).
Preparatory activities for the implementation of the MOSAIC pilots in two Mission cities - Milan and Gothenburg have started. During the first half of the project, partners have concentrated on the adaptation of the co-creation methodology to the mission contexts taking into account all the research performed by the project up to now.
Besides developing a Communication, dissemination and exploitation strategy, MOSAIC created a recognisable visual identity and website. Moreover, partners worked on launching the MOSAIC community of practice which included a call for interest for cities. The call was open for both: cities selected and not selected for the Mission. As a result, 19 cities from 12 countries applied to be part of the MOSAIC CoP. Moreover, two webinars and one in-person Community of Practice event have already taken place focusing on different aspects of citizen and stakeholder engagement within the Mission.
Another important aspect of MOSAIC is impact assessment. The project aims to identify the contributions of co-creation to (a) the “Mission” objectives and (b) the objectives of the variety of stakeholders that participate in the co-creation activities. So far, partners have conducted a review of processual impact assessment approaches, drawing and expanding on the large experience of two partners in impact assessment and indicator development. During this review, it became apparent that there is no clear standard or framework to assess when a co-creation project can be deemed successful. Therefore the partners have decided to develop key performance indicators on the process of the co-creation to assess the quality and potential for impacts of co-creation approaches, as diverse as these approaches might be.
The project management team is providing continued support to the successful delivery of all project activities and tasks, including an effective Data Management Plan, a Project handbook, regular partner meetings and regular reporting for effective monitoring as well as liaising with the EC and other EU-funded projects.
One of the main objectives so far has been to explore and review past and current co-creation experiences in order to analyse these experiences through the lens of open innovation and transform them into a mosaic of approaches and processes relevant to open and mission-oriented innovation. To do so, partners have conducted the MOSAIC experience review of 50 co-creation projects, analysing them according to (1) the processes and tools employed, (2) the sites and venues of co-creation and (3) the rationales of co-creation. This has provided the grounds necessary to develop the “MOSAIC co-creation approach” in this fast-evolving landscape of science and innovation policy. In addition, the project’s definition of co-creation which will serve as the guiding principle for the work ahead was developed.
The co-creation experience review was complemented, on one hand by the specificities of the Mission Area selected in MOSAIC (Climate neutral and smart cities) as well as other missions on the other hand. To achieve this partners have revised the mission-oriented policy landscape, its history and how it has evolved over the past decades. They have also summarised the goals and scope of the five Missions of Horizon Europe, with a particular emphasis on the MOSAIC Mission of focus. Another important focus of MOSAIC was to explore how to incentivise and fairly reward citizens taking part in quadruple helix innovation pathways. Eight structured interviews with MOSAIC cities have been conducted in this regard. The results were summarised in a project policy brief (D3.3).
Preparatory activities for the implementation of the MOSAIC pilots in two Mission cities - Milan and Gothenburg have started. During the first half of the project, partners have concentrated on the adaptation of the co-creation methodology to the mission contexts taking into account all the research performed by the project up to now.
Besides developing a Communication, dissemination and exploitation strategy, MOSAIC created a recognisable visual identity and website. Moreover, partners worked on launching the MOSAIC community of practice which included a call for interest for cities. The call was open for both: cities selected and not selected for the Mission. As a result, 19 cities from 12 countries applied to be part of the MOSAIC CoP. Moreover, two webinars and one in-person Community of Practice event have already taken place focusing on different aspects of citizen and stakeholder engagement within the Mission.
Another important aspect of MOSAIC is impact assessment. The project aims to identify the contributions of co-creation to (a) the “Mission” objectives and (b) the objectives of the variety of stakeholders that participate in the co-creation activities. So far, partners have conducted a review of processual impact assessment approaches, drawing and expanding on the large experience of two partners in impact assessment and indicator development. During this review, it became apparent that there is no clear standard or framework to assess when a co-creation project can be deemed successful. Therefore the partners have decided to develop key performance indicators on the process of the co-creation to assess the quality and potential for impacts of co-creation approaches, as diverse as these approaches might be.
As a Research and Innovation Action, MOSAIC’s activities aim to establish new knowledge. The way the project has been shaped means that during this first period partners have worked in setting strong foundations, producing a knowledge base that will contribute to moving beyond the state of the art.
The project has already started to work on a number of elements contributing to generating an impact:
1. A taxonomy of civil society “mission-involvement” has been key in developing a critical vision of the citizen involvement framing in the missions. This taxonomy is linked to the work being developed in creating a guide on how to incentivise and fairly reward citizens taking part in quadruple helix innovation pathways to produce for-profit outcomes which will contribute to filling the gap identified at the proposal writing stage of real involvement of citizens within the quadruple helix innovation model.
2. An anticipatory impact assessment approach that can be used to steer co-creation activities themselves towards mission-oriented contributions. Moreover, the co-creation of indicators embedding the norms and values of all the different stakeholders involved into the pathway beyond the co-creation activity. These indicators can be used by the organisers/orchestrators of the co-creation to monitor the outcomes of the co-creation activity and give a voice to those stakeholders (such as civil society) that may not be involved in the steps that follow the co-creation activity.
3. By conducting a targeted review of practices and experiences of co-creation, MOSAIC tried to capture part of the state-of-the-art. The results of the co-creation review were presented and well-received at the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) conference in July 2022 in Madrid. The encouraging remarks on the work has motivated the team to create a peer-reviewed scientific article.
The project has already started to work on a number of elements contributing to generating an impact:
1. A taxonomy of civil society “mission-involvement” has been key in developing a critical vision of the citizen involvement framing in the missions. This taxonomy is linked to the work being developed in creating a guide on how to incentivise and fairly reward citizens taking part in quadruple helix innovation pathways to produce for-profit outcomes which will contribute to filling the gap identified at the proposal writing stage of real involvement of citizens within the quadruple helix innovation model.
2. An anticipatory impact assessment approach that can be used to steer co-creation activities themselves towards mission-oriented contributions. Moreover, the co-creation of indicators embedding the norms and values of all the different stakeholders involved into the pathway beyond the co-creation activity. These indicators can be used by the organisers/orchestrators of the co-creation to monitor the outcomes of the co-creation activity and give a voice to those stakeholders (such as civil society) that may not be involved in the steps that follow the co-creation activity.
3. By conducting a targeted review of practices and experiences of co-creation, MOSAIC tried to capture part of the state-of-the-art. The results of the co-creation review were presented and well-received at the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) conference in July 2022 in Madrid. The encouraging remarks on the work has motivated the team to create a peer-reviewed scientific article.