Territorial Responsible Research and Innovation Through the involvement of local R&I Actors

Project Information

TeRRItoria

Grant agreement ID: 824565

DOI

10.3030/824565

Project closed

EC signature date 23 January 2019

Start date 1 February 2019

End date 28 February 2022

Funded under

• Integrate society in science and innovation issues, policies and activities in order to integrate citizens' interests and values and to increase the quality, relevance, social acceptability and sustainability of research and innovation outcomes in various fields of activity from social innovation to areas such as biotechnology and nanotechnology

Total cost

€ 1 999 833,75

EU contribution

€ 1 999 833,75

Coordinated by

FONDATION EUROPEENNE DE LA SCIENCE
France

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - TeRRItoria (Territorial Responsible Research and Innovation Through the involvement of local R&I Actors)

Reporting period: 2020-05-01 to 2022-02-28

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The TeRRItoria vision is to tackle a double challenge: to bring RRI at the forefront of the debate for developing local and regional R&I capacities; and to use RRI as a springboard for broadening the number of stakeholders involved in the process of enhancing the regional research and innovation strategies under the framework of regional planning and/or the Smart Specialization Strategy. The overall objective of the project is to experiment with the adoption of the Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) approach in European regional and territorial R&I systems.

TeRRItoria is based on the idea that the RRI approach, policies and practices, developed so far at the level of research institutions, may be adapted to that of regional and territorial governance. Thus, the project approach allows the development of what can be called “Territorial RRI”, by designing a set of transformative experiments in 5 European selected territories – 4 regions and 1 municipality.
The key objectives are: to introduce concrete and measurable changes in the R&I systems of the 5 below-mentioned territories, so as to make them more inclusive; to introduce concrete and measurable institutional changes in the territorial organisations involved in the project, so that RRI becomes an embedded element of their planning process; to develop a better understanding of how RRI can be adapted at the territorial level; and finally, to contribute to the enhancement of the Smart Specialisation Strategy process through exploring synergies with RRI.

The 5 European selected territories – 4 regions and 1 municipality, are as follows:
Region of Central Macedonia (Greece)
Region of Emilia Romagna (Italy)
Region of Trøndelag (Norway)
Region of North-East Romania (Romania)
Municipality of Gabrovo (Bulgaria)

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Over the project timespan TeRRItoria focused on achieving 7 well-defined project objectives:

Objective 1: Mapping territorial R&I ecosystems
The mapped the 5 territories where the transformative experiments were carried out, as to gather all the information needed for designing the experiments. Particular attention was devoted to identifying the actors of civil society who would be involved in the co-design and the implementation of the experiments, and to the analysis of their orientations, knowledge, resources, relations, perceived risks, etc.
Objective 2: Mapping governance innovation practices
By analysing a set of governance innovation practices, the project identified a Map of approaches, policies and tools that may be useful for designing and implementing the Transformative Experiments (TEs). The Map was used in designing and implementation of TEs for development of a genuine approach in each territory for embedding the RRI in the overall territorial development (Territorial RRI).
Objective 3: Co-designing transformative experiments
5 territorial partners developed a participative design (co-design) of their transformative experiments. Co-design was pursued through an itinerary of reflection with the input from the maps produced in the analytical strand (Objectives 1 and 2). This reflexive exercise involved the partners of the consortium, local stakeholders and actors of civil society, as well as European experts and policy-makers.
Objective 4: Implementing transformative experiments
The implementation of TEs in each of the 5 territories involved in the project was pursued by following the set of activities developed in the co-design phase (objective 3). This exercise involved the partners of the consortium; local stakeholders and actors of civil society;
Objective 5: Evaluating transformative experiments
Project implemented an evaluation of its activities and the impacts produced with an eye to ensuring long-term sustainability of the TEs.
Objective 6: Continuous learning
Following goals has been addressed:
a) sustain of the implementation of the transformative experiments through mutual learning activities and
b) identification of policy recommendations for the integration of RRI in S3 and the development of a territorial RRI approach.
Objective 7: Sharing and exploiting the projects outputs
Important stakeholders (within the RRI field and beyond) for the success and sustainability of the project were identified, and frameworks for their involvement as well as strategic communication channels were established. Dissemination and exploitation of project outputs was ensured by preparing, updating regularly and implementing Plan for Dissemination and Exploitation of results (PDER)

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

• The set of mapping tools, to pursue a comprehensive mapping of the state-of-the-art of RRI (actors, initiatives, factors and policies) and the R&I ecosystems in the target territories.
• The map of the targeted territorial milieux.
• The map of the state-of-the-art of R&I ecosystems in the 5 territories. The results present the analyses of the state-of-the-art based on available resources (such as S3 online platform, regional ecosystem scoreboard and European Cluster Collaboration Platform, among others) for each territory.
• A inventory of bottom-up governance innovation practices, including 30 practices. For each practice, information is provided on: General aspects (responsible entity, location, objectives, etc.), Interpretation or vision, Approach to actors’ mobilization, Activity undertaken, Opportunities, Obstacles, Main impacts.
• A inventory of RRI governance innovation practices. The inventory includes the following: a project summary for each of the 15 selected projects and, for each of the 43 practices, an analysis based on the following variables: General description (leader, country, timeframe, RRI key, S3, etc.), Objectives, Policies/Strategies (how the activities were implemented), Synergies and Correlations, Barriers and incentives, Impact (inside and outside of the ecosystem).
• A map of approaches, policies and tools for Territorial RRI, summarizing and elaborating on the knowledge produced in the previous deliverables, and providing insights for the planning of the transformative experiments.
• The evaluation scheme including: a) a process evaluation; and b) an impact assessment.
• The formative and summative evaluation results including impacts achieved and process narratives
• The 5 TeRRItoria co-designs and reports on implementation including sustainability plans.
• The TeRRItoria mutual learning strategy, lessons learned and policy recommendations.
• The municipality of Gabrovo has used the project to have a better governance, widening the involvement of enterprises, university and civil society (including students) in the design of its RIS3.
• The development agency ADR Nord Est has set up a platform for engaging applied Research and Development (R&D) that increased the involvement of socio-economic actors in its smart specialisation strategy.
• ART-ER development agency has contributed with an advanced mechanism for civil society participation in the social innovation aspects of its smart specialisation strategy, which is a model in Italy.
• The region of Central Macedonia has developed a model gender equality plan, which has led to the creation of a regional gender council that encompasses all actors in a sustainable way.
• Trøndelag has established a system for attracting talent to underpopulated areas using the capacity of the NTNU university.

Pages 2 and 3 of the TeRRItoria leaflet

Pages 1 and 4 of the TeRRItoria leaflet