Date: 10 & 11 April 2019
Place: Vienna Austria
Participats
Fourteen participants from several different countries took part in this workshop.
They represented a variety of stakeholders such as: civil society organisation, academia, funding agencies and research institutes.
Description
The NewHoRRIzon project encourages the integration of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in the European research and innovation funding programme H2020 and beyond. NewHoRRIzon addresses all program lines within H2020 including the European Research Council (ERC), which funds basic research.
In order to reach its objective, the NewHoRRIzon project takes a co-creation approach – so called Social Labs ‑ to stimulate the uptake of RRI in the different program lines of H2020. Social Labs bring people with a common interest together to solve complex problems. The Social Lab process provides a space for experimentation, learning and implementation of RRI activities. It involves several workshops in which stakeholders analyse together a problem, generate visions, develop pilot activities, evaluate them, continue what’s working, stop what doesn’t and, if necessary, create, new pilot activities. Pilot activities are developed and implemented in between Social Lab workshops. They should nudge existing everyday practise towards RRI and not create additional burden for researchers.
One of the pilot actions developed by participants of the
NewHoRRIzon Social Lab “ERC and basic research” is “Quadrologue”. Quadrologue aims
at strengthening public engagement and involvement in research. It is a low-threshold
dialogue format for conversations in small groups and tries to break down the
barrier between research and society. It meets the challenge that today the societal impact of research and
innovation is hardly addressed. There is little everyday
exchange between researchers, research funders and ordinary people about the
impact of science and technology on our society. However, it is necessary to
discuss these issues inclusively to generate knowledge, understanding, mutual trust
and inclusive science and technology. Quadrologue is a low-threshold meeting
format for researchers, administrators, students and lay people to discuss these
issues. Quadrologue provides laypeople with an opportunity to learn about and to
contribute to new research. For researchers Quadrologue is a chance to explain
their research in a way that is accessible to nonprofessional and to get input from
laypeople as well.
A Quadrologue
lasts 45 minutes. Thus, it is short enough to fit in-between every day
responsibilities. It is inviting. Participants are meeting in a casual
atmosphere and talk “over a cup of coffee”. The Quadrologue can be organized
with little financial and organisational effort almost everywhere. The dialogue
is structured and follows a defined format to avoid digression. Students, which
have been trained for this role, facilitate the conversation. This should
contribute to an eye-level conversation between scientific experts and
lay-people. First tests of the Quadrologue will be carried out in the next
months.
