Social Lab 14 – Workshop 3

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sdr

Date: 24-25 Oct 2019

Place: Novi-Sad, Serbia

Description

The 3rd workshop of Social Lab 14 focused on reviewing and reflecting people’s experiences with the pilot actions. In this workshop pilot actions and activities were re-assessed and consolidated and we evaluated the pilot actions and activities. Social Lab Participants who engaged themselves in one of the active pilot actions were invited to participate and convened 13 stakeholders from research ‑ including Widening grantees, team members and applicants ‑ research funding organizations, industry representatives and civil society organizations.

This workshop was also an opportunity for deepening the knowledge of RRI and its dimensions with a special focus on the actions and on harvesting lessons learned during the process. We identified the barriers for an efficient RRI implementation and had two guests with us who explained their personal experience and practicalities of how embedding RRI into their organizations. There was also room to discuss about the success factors and shared ideas about the future and planned next steps in pilot actions.

Participants

  • Tigran Arzumayan – National Academy of Sciences of Armenia (Armenia).
  • Zivile Ruzele-Research Council of Lithuania
  • Milica Pojić-University of Novi Sad, Institute of Food Technology (Serbia).
  • Mila Grahovac-University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Agriculture (Serbia).
  • Petar Vrgovic- Faculty of Technical Sciences / University of Novi Sad (Serbia)
  • Helmi Mardassi-Institut Pasteur (Tunisia)
  • Todor Markovic- University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Agriculture (Serbia)
  • Dejan Beukovic- University of Novi Sad, Institute for Food Technology (Serbia).
  • Georgi Bonchev – Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (Bulgary)
  • Anca Constantinescu-Dobra – Technical University of Cluj-Napoca (Romania)
  • Maria Krasteva– Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (Bulgary)
  • Anna Voseckova – Technology Centre CAS (Czech Republic)
  • Milica Drajkovic- BioSciences Institue (Serbia)

Updates on Pilot Actions

  • RRI training 2.0: This pilot action has generated a complete module on RRI for Widening applicants that started first in Czech language by a Czech participant from the National Contact Point (NCP) of Widening from this country. The action has been replicated in other countries in connection with the European network of NCPs. This work devoted towards the integration of RRI in their training materials for Widening has resulted in actionable information that can be easily disseminated in their national and regional activities. TECNALIA team also conducted a dedicated training at Innsbruck on 3rd and 4th of July 2018 for helping the NCP Widening Network to help familiarize with the concept. This has provoked that several NCPs started to incorporate the RRI concept at their InfoDays. Czech, Spanish, Armenian, Polish and Lithuanian representatives have developed dedicated materials. In some Info Days, TECNALIA team has been present, with a dedicated talk about RRI such as in the case of Spanish info day that was held on the 24h of September of 2019 at Seville.
  • Promotion of openness and ethics in science at the Institute of Plant Physiology and Genetics (IPPG): This is a continuation of the action “Chat with a researcher” idea that was inspired by Open Science activities that were performed during the second Social Lab that aimed to promote public engagement. Some of the dedicated measures have been deployed since the first WS to facilitate public engagement such as a Facebook group and some seminars conducted around Open Science and Ethics. This pilot facilitates the dissemination of the RRI paradigm as well as Open Science concepts into several dedicated events in this Institute. All the activities are giving visibility of the academy and the institution to the general public and established prospects for future collaborations. This improved public awareness about research activities and the visibility of IPPG at national level.
  • Public engagement in Electric Vehicles. This is a continuation of the Human Sustainable Development action identified during the second SL which aimed deepening the social and sustainability dimension of the scientific and technological curricula that are being provided at a Romanian university.  They have organized science education activities for several children at schools with different socio-economic status in order to attract people in research fields, specially involving girls in STEAM and disseminate research towards public. The exercise was focused on the design of the future electric vehicle.
  • “RRIzing” the University of Novi Sad. Ad-hoc RRI team that have been coordinated around the keys plus one extra (generational gap) at University level. An RRI diagnosis was conducted at the institution that delivered several insights that have been useful for working in the six keys. There are currently 11 people involved in this initiative, 8 allocated with the keys and 3 more as managers and administrative staff. Each person oversees one RRI dimension.