Skip to main content
European Commission logo
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS
CORDIS Web 30th anniversary CORDIS Web 30th anniversary

Organisational public engagement with science and society (OPEST)

Objective

There is a widely entertained, societal obligation on the part of scientific institutions to serve society with social impact and to engage citizens in research policy. This is also evidenced in recent policy documents (e.g. the European Union Framework Programme for Research and Innovation defines tackling societal challenges through research as one of the main priorities for Europe in the next decade), and by procedures of research funding bodies that require plans for engaging society with the results of the funded research. As a result, universities and scientific institutions face an imperative to facilitate ‘pathways to impact’ for their research as this can be an important factor in determining funding beyond serving society. While research on resources for PE has mainly focused on scientists, little attention has been paid to the institutional context in which PE occurs. OPEST – Organisational Public Engagement with Science and Technology will examine how RIs are engaging society. We aim to assemble an international database of comparable data on the culture of PE at institutions and to develop PE indicators for assessing institutional PE. The study has been implemented in Portugal in 2014. This project will allow conducting the study in the UK, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and the US.
The project represents a breakthrough because of its novelty, type of data, scale and comparability. This is the first time that national studies and comparable data on institutional PE will be produced. The study will address the gap in the literature on organisational PE, provide evidence on which RIs can base workable systems to actively involve society, support policy makers in the development of policy actions to foster PE at national and international levels, and in the medium-term, contribute to engaging citizens in research and policy. Finally, the international collaboration and training that the project involves will help me reach a position of professional maturity.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Coordinator

LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
Net EU contribution
€ 183 454,80
Address
Houghton Street 1
WC2A 2AE London
United Kingdom

See on map

Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost
€ 183 454,80