Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI
Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI

Project

Citizen and Multi-Actor Consultation on Horizon 2020 (CIMULACT)

The aim of CIMULACT was to develop and implement a multi-stage foresight and strategy process in which citizens, together with other stakeholders, contribute to agenda setting for research and innovation policy. Specifically, the participatory foresight process was used to develop proposals for the EU's research framework program (Horizon 2020).

The first step involved visioning workshops with more than 1000 citizens in 30 European countries. The resulting 179 visions were further developed and prioritized in additional participatory processes, including a scenario co-creation conference with more than 100 citizens and experts and an argumentative online Delphi survey with 3400 participants.

In this way, 23 proposals for research priorities were developed, which address the societal needs articulated by the citizens.

A comparison with expert-based proposals for Horizon 2020 priorities, guided by ISI, showed that citizen input enables new tailoring of societal and technological cross-cutting themes for research and innovation that break through current "thinking silos" and are suitable for driving research and innovation forward.

A video of "Behind the methodology of the CIMULACT project" can be found here.

See all project outcomes here.

CIMULACT was a three-year project funded by the European Commission under Grant Agreement number 665948, starting June 2015 and ending March 2018.

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In short, CIMULACT will

  • create vision and scenarios that connect societal needs with future expected advances in Science and their impact on technology, society, environment etc. in connection to the grand challenges
  • provide concrete input to Horizon 2020 through recommendations and policy options for R&I and simulated calls for the Horizon2020 Work Programmes.
  • engage citizens and stakeholders in a highly participatory debate/consultation/process on scenarios for desirable sustainable futures and research
  • build capacities in citizen and multi-actor engagement in R&I through development, experimentation, training and assessment of methods for engagement
  • facilitate dialogue and shared understanding between policymakers, citizens, and stakeholders
  • reveal the relative merits of the citizen focused consultations

The tasks of Fraunhofer ISI were:

  • leading the co-creation process to further develop the visions of the citizens into needs-oriented research topics (lead WP 2 research topic co-creation)
  • supporting the concept development for the citizen visioning workshops (WP1)
  • implementing the citizen visioning workshops in Germany (WP1& WP3)
  • supporting the methodological learning through comparison with expert-based foresight processes (WP5)

Duration

07/2015 – 12/2017

Client

European Commission

Partner

  • The Danish Board of Technology Foundation – DBT (Denmark) (Project Coordinator)
  • Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI (Germany)
  • Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) – Institute of Technology Assessment – ITA (Austria)
  • Missions Publiques – MP (France)
  • Strategic Design Scenarios – SDS (Belgium)
  • Technology Centre of the Academy of Sciences – TCASCR (Czech Republic)
  • Institutul de Prospectiva – PROSPECTIVA (Romania)
  • Applied Research and Communications Fund – ARC fund (Bulgaria)
  • GreenDependent Institute Nonprofit Ltd – GDI (Hungary)
  • Design Department – POLIMI (Italy)
  • Association for Science and Discovery Centres – ASDC (United Kingdom)
  • The Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation – FCRi (Spain)
  • The Swiss Centre for Technology Assessment – TA SWISS (Switzerland)
  • The National Consumer Research Centre – NCRC (Finland)
  • Norwegian Board of Technology – NBT (Norway)
  • The Institute for Sustainable Technologies – National Research Institute – ITeE-PIB (Poland)
  • Knowledge economy forum – KEF (Lithuania)
  • Baltic Consulting (Latvia (and Estonia))
  • University College Cork – UCC (Ireland)
  • Research institute – LEI (The Netherlands)
  • MEDIATEDOMAIN – Lda (Portugal)
  • The University of Malta – UoM (Malta)
  • The Slovak Academy of Sciences – SAS (Slovakia)
  • Slovenian Business & Research Association v SBRA (Slovenia)
  • RTD TALOS LIMITED (RTD TALOS) (Cyprus)
  • 4MOTION – SOCIAL ACTOR FOR SOCIAL CHANGE (Luxemburg)
  • ODRZIVI RAZVOJ ZAJEDNICE – SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT – (ODRAZ) (Croatia)
  • STATENS GEOTEKNISKA INSTITUT (SGI) SWEDISH GEOTECHICAL INSTITUTE – DEPARTMENT OF LAND USE PLANNING AND CLIMATE ADAPTION (Sweden)
  • ATLANTIS SYMVOULEFTIKI ANONYMI ETAIREIA ATLANTIS CONSULTING SA (ALT) (Greece)

Publications