6 steps to engage with Quadruple Helix stakeholders

By SalM on October 22, 2020 in News Articles

What is Stakeholder Engagement?

Stakeholder engagement is a highly relevant activity, an ongoing process, that builds relationships between parties enabling information exchange. This process allows stakeholder affected by decisions of organisation in question to contribute to the decision-making process.

The process of stakeholder engagement is voluntary, open and active dialog, that identifies current position of all parties included, outlines objectives and outcomes, and identifies how to achieve them. Parties that are included in the engagement can change but the process of engagement is continues.

For stakeholder engagement to be effective there are some requirements: willingness and motivation of stakeholders to participate (Gunton et al., 2010); inclusivity of all possible interests (Reed, 2008); equal access to information and knowledge (Gunton et al., 2010; Gopnik et al., 2017). Some barriers in the process of engagement can be identified as well such as: the participation is more tokenistic (cosmetic) rather than active (Pomeroy and Douvere, 2008; Echler et al., 2009; Gopnik et al., 2017; Flannery et al., 2018); unfamiliarity with the processes and activities of the organisation in question (Water, 2018); public can have deeply rooted value and belief system (local fisherman for e.g.) affecting the trust level in organisation in question (Jentoft and Knol, 2013).

The main value of engagement with stakeholders lies in the understanding of dialogue dynamics and enabled participation (Luoma-Aho, 2015). Generally, engagement is referred to as the interaction between stakeholders and organisation where interaction influences stakeholder thoughts, actions and emotions toward organisation (Broodie et al., 2011). The benefits of quadruple helix stakeholder engagement by the development of collaborative network are evident through access to knowledge, development of scientific competence, obtaining a competitive advantage through the acceleration of ideas, but significant challenges still remain: how to manage such relationships. 

Stakeholder engagement – role of QH in GRRIP

Quadruple helix stakeholders for GRRIP project represent a group of all stakeholders in one place with function of reflecting societal needs. They are expected to participate in development (co-create) action plan for RRI interventions within demo sites. They will serve as a reflection group where sites will demonstrate openness with QH. Through mutual learning and interaction QH will support demo sites in development of sustainable inclusion of QH involvement.  Role of QH in GRRIP project is to co and includes several points.

Throughout QH engagement this reflexive working group will support institutionalising RRI and ensure that it is reflective to societal needs throughout the process

Step 1: Identify, plan and understand

The first step to effectively engage with stakeholders is to identify who they are (Akhmouch and Clavreul, 2016). The identification of stakeholders includes several activities. Firstly, you need to develop a list of stakeholders, categorise them according to mutuality (how important is the stakeholder to the project) and what they expect. You need to document each stakeholder’s influence and relationship to the organisation (Bourne, 2010).

In order to establish meaningful relationships with stakeholders, you need to identify basic objectives that you as an organisation want to achieve, issues you want to address and stakeholders that you want to engage. In order to understand your stakeholders, you have to “dig deeper” to understand their decision-making process, their expectations from you, what objectives are they seeking and how did they influence you previously (Jeffery, 2009). 

As a first step toward QH stakeholder engagement, you need to define your stakeholders within all QH categories, the mapping of QH should be based on current and ideal collaborations. (Figure 1.)

During the mapping of stakeholders for the QH platform, all four stakeholder groups should be included. The stakeholders will engage in defining future stakeholder engagement strategy and action plan creation for RRI “interventions” within the site. Table 1 gives an overview of the perceived contribution of different QH categories in the engagement with demo sites. Throughout the consultation process why and how QH contributes can be refined remaining fluidity of the engagement process.

Step 2: Internal preparation and alignment

The next stage of engagement includes internal alignment with stakeholders, recognition of commonalities between you and stakeholders. The success of engagement with stakeholders is much dependent on the ability to align the interests and objectives of your organisation with stakeholders. This does not mean that your objectives and interests must be identical. For a coordinated approach, some good practices indicate the involvement of the internal stakeholder management team to support coordination with stakeholder platform, regular communication and feedback and to connect the stakeholder engagement process to processes within the company (Jeffery, 2009).  At least one person from case study demo sites should be included in the coordination/support of QH stakeholder engagement in order to maintain regular communication and collect feedback from QH. Coordinator/stakeholder management team would serve as a broker/mediator bringing across expectations/reflections of stakeholders/societal needs back to site and vice versa.

When you identify who are your key players and who you want to engage with, it is important to motivate your stakeholder to participate. The motivation of QH can be achieved firstly through training, providing necessary information regarding RRI as a concept and making RRI terminology understandable and familiar to different QH categories. It is noted by the survey and indicated in 4.2.3. document that over 50% of respondents to the survey that they have low familiarity with RRI. Having this in mind each demo site should consider if the adaptation of the terminology to the local context/language is necessary as indicated in T4.2.3. QH stakeholder perspective document.

One of the barriers identified by the SoA (3.2. and 4.2.1.) is lack of time and resources, by motivating your stakeholder you are emphasising that benefits from the engagement will be worth “sacrificed” time and resources.

Industry

Most common barriers to RRI industrial uptake that can be extrapolated to the resistance of industry in engaging with GRRIP sites in RRI-embedding processes. These include lack of RRI expertise, limited resources, the challenges of fulfilling all RRI functions (pillars) within the company and the project partners and value chain actors, the unclear added value of RRI approaches and the lack of long-term vision among others.

Examples from other projects suggest some lessons learned in overcoming these barriers

• Link RRI with ISO and CEN standards regarding management systems in the areas of social responsibility, sustainability, innovation, quality and risks- such as ISO 26000, ISO 31000, ISO 9001 and ISO 56000
• RRI provides a complementary approach compared to existing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices, adding a specific focus on the R&I process and based on three key actions:

1. Integrate analysis of ethical, legal and social impacts from the early stages of product development (reflection and anticipation)
2. Perform stakeholder engagement to inform all phases of product development (inclusiveness)
3. Integrate monitoring, learning and adaptive mechanisms to address public and social values and normative principles in product development (responsiveness)

• There is a need to provide specific industry tools for top management commitment and leadership, context analysis, materiality analysis, experiment and engagement, validation and AP design/implementation and monitoring/evaluation
• Use good practices and case study dissemination to raise RRI awareness in the industry
• Develop systems and processes to protect key intellectual property rights, data and personnel
• Assess the obstacles that result in academia working at a slower pace than industry.

All these lessons learned should be considered while aligning the interests and objectives of your organisation with industry stakeholders. Aligning interests with SDGs could also be a useful way to bridge conversation across many sectors

Academia

Type of stakeholder can be very bureaucratic and opposing general resistance to change, RRI aspects shall be of direct interest to its researchers: mutual learning, access to know-how on tools (i.e. JERRI self-assessment toolkit on ethical aspects), processes (interdisciplinary by nature) and the imperative requirement to adapt for a better and more responsible way of doing science as to better serve societal needs.

In engaging with academia, GRRIP sites are generally advised to use the most attractive specific RRI keys for researchers: ethics, Open access, gender and diversity to open a more holistic discussion on how to strengthen RPOs social role in the site territory of action. Ethics and Open Access is something that most researchers are very familiar with. By including these pillars when engaging with academia, discussions will be more easily facilitated due to the researcher’s familiarity with specific RRI pillar. Even such an approach has its benefits, we need to consider the benefits of a more holistic approach to embedding RRI. By sticking to specific “more familiar” RRI keys we are retaining the “status quo” with no chance of growth, by including other RRI keys through a more holistic approach we are offering a way QH to grow. Considering other, not so “attractive”, RRI keys we offer openness and inclusiveness and a way to facilitate dialogue between different QH categories rather than choosing exclusively one RRI key that could be interesting to one QH category.

Reflection workshops with focus groups can be organised to reflect on joint challenges/lessons/processes and create a trust for sustained alliances with other RPOs, university and multi-spheres institutions. Identify regional and national champions to be brought forward and benchmarking on science quality as gender equality, transdisciplinary, or open access. GRRIP sites can propose to join forces among themselves as i.e establish a new role (i.e. Ethics adviser) co-founded and serving a network of institutions or organise joint training courses

Policy makers

The close involvement of policymakers at different levels in the site RRI process can help in identifying explicit (i.e. migration policies, work permits, statistics laws, etc.) and implicit policy instruments (i.e. funding programs, tax incentives, RRI assessment and indicators as a pre-requisite for national calls participation, etc.) that need to be strengthened or redefine to support the sites- use as pilots – for RRI structural change.

The involvement of policymakers at the national level is important and sites can attract their participation by justifying their need of data and experiences/expertise to support the monitoring of the UNESCO RS/SR recommendation on a 4-year basis, and in particular, the gender equality issues that has a special organisational structure and priority in many European Member states. The promotion of success stories, at the national and local levels, can also inspire change in other stakeholders and shall be done in cooperation with policy-makers covering the different territorial levels. Policymakers can participate in special focus groups discussion or/and be part of the Advisory board for the project/sites.

Civil society

QH platforms can facilitate engagement and openness to QH. Case study demo sites should identify value areas and actions that might be of mutual benefit; consider:

• How an institution supports the community in the area of innovation;
• Be careful of hidden stakeholders (e.g. fishermen and their wives; wives doing a lot of administration for fishermen);
• Finding opportunities for inclusion of QH around community and innovation.

GRRIP institutions cannot be expected to produce stakeholder engagement solely through their specific efforts, but depend also on the existence of a broader engagement ecosystem that reduces transaction costs and stabilises expectations across categories of stakeholders.

Step 3: Build trust

The third step of stakeholder engagement is the trust-building process as a fundamental part of this process. In order to build trust, you need to consider different aspects of QH platform such as inequity of the relationship, differential power of different stakeholders, language and cultural barriers (in QH platforms that include international stakeholders), ways of operating etc. To build trust, information must be shared both ways followed by the willingness of both parties to understand others’ viewpoints (Jeffery, 2009).

The crucial part of trust-building is good alignment of the interests and objectives of your organisation with stakeholders that you intend to engage in. For the trust-building process, you need to consider common obstacles (consult the previous step), identify the ones that you anticipate to encounter when engaging with your QH stakeholders and work on gaining trust of stakeholders by addressing the identified obstacles/issues

Step 4: Co-creation

Communication with your stakeholder is the first level of engagement aiming to raise awareness by allowing participating stakeholders to explore, transform and build their opinions and perspective (Fung, 2006; Akhmouch and Clavreul, 2016). Process of consultation with stakeholders should be (Jeffery, 2009):

• Representative – QH list of stakeholders comprised of a full range of stakeholders affected by organisation. Do not think only of big, vocal and sympathetic stakeholders, consider also small stakeholders, they can be a valuable asset in stakeholder engagement. Pay attention to inclusive representation: When choosing stakeholders, it is important to include all four types of stakeholders in the cohort.
• Responsive – by doing work in the preparation phase you should be able to present information, proposals, ideas to stakeholders that correspond to their expectations and interests. Previous steps should provide inputs for responsive consultations.
• Context focused – stakeholders need to get a detailed and complete picture of organisations motivation. It is important to keep QH interested and motivated work within step two should provide information on how to keep motivated different QH for the QH engagement process and RRI.
• Complete: appropriate background information, provided by the internal knowledge management system (stakeholder management group) will allow stakeholders to form conclusions. For engagement to be complete in preparatory work in step 2 will provide you with QH specific data to tailor approaches for each QH category.
• Realistic – in consultation with stakeholders there is an expected percentage of the trade-off of expectations, needs and objectives, which can be positive and strengthening the process of trust-building. It is very important to accurately present your intentions and expectations.

Organisation needs to know the expectations of QH stakeholders and communication with QH is the key. A structured approach built upon your understanding about the importance and expectations of your stakeholders will result in effective communication (Bourne, 2010). Several techniques can be used in process of consultation with stakeholders (Jeffery, 2009):

• Personal interviews
• Workshops
• Focus groups
• Public or “town hall” meetings
• Surveys
• Participatory tools
• Stakeholder panels
• Online tools

Prior to consultation organisation must decide which stakeholder to consult and the appropriate mechanism that will be utilised having in mind local conditions and characteristics of the stakeholder. This could mean that different techniques will be used for different stakeholders. SoA 3.2. and T4.2.1. addressed best practices and lessons learned from other projects, based on their findings presented guidelines suggest possible tailoring of different engagement techniques to different types of stakeholders. GRRIP chose to trail workshops as a method of engagement, but due to COVID-19 online tools are also a valid option for the engagement. Further, we will discuss how different stakeholders can be engaged using workshops and how can online tools be used for inclusive interactive engagement of all QH types.

Considering current feedback, during Planning for Change workshop in June (2020), from the case study demo sites, physical meetings supplemented with online tools are the preferred way of engagement.

Workshops

Industry stakeholders can require the development of industry-specific tools for top management commitment and leadership, context analysis, materiality analysis, experiment and engagement, validation and AP design/implementation and monitoring/evaluation as stated in T4.2.1. Also as SoA D3.2. the indicated industry is oriented toward their commercial objectives and can be difficult to engage them without establishing a sort of „paid relationship“. For GRRIP industry stakeholders could be engaged through workshops.

Workshops are the main envisioned engagement tool for QH stakeholder engagement. For the industry to be meaningfully engaged it is necessary to develop a workshop theme in correspondence with industry goals and objectives. As stated in T4.2.1. one way of making RRI exciting for industry stakeholders is connecting specific RRI keys to ISO and CEN standards regarding management systems in the areas of social responsibility, sustainability, innovation, quality and risks- such as ISO 26000, ISO 31000, ISO 9001 and ISO 56000 (trust-building). When designing the workshop time could be one of the crucial determining factors whether QH stakeholders will engage, bear in mind the availability of the stakeholder, and deliver clear timelines for the workshop. Short agenda with a clear indication of expected contribution will facilitate the trust-building. The facilitator will be the main moving force of the workshop, make sure that they are well trained and have the skills to initiate fruitful discussion

For the policymakers, key aspect of meaningful engagement within GRRIP project can be aligning demo site RRI processes with policy instruments as indicated in T4.2.1. One way to do this is to choose RRI keys that can align with their interest, e.g. concerning funding policies, RRI assessment and indicators as a pre-requisite for national calls participation, etc. Similarly, in interaction with Academia by selecting RRI researcher-specific pillars (Ethics, Open Access, gender) you can ensure their participation.

Best practices from other projects analysed in SoA 4.2.1. indicated that having a Citizen’s office: a series of citizens’ meeting in which social needs can be put forth to science, can be useful for engagement with this stakeholder. The second tool was a public debate with actors from academia and civil society on a topic of high public attention. The citizen´s office and debates were considered as very effective by the project officer

If we are organising a workshop for all stakeholders together, specific interests but also a common interest should be identified and interactive engagement should be facilitated. Since COVID-19 enforced virtual meetings inclusion of interactive tools (e.g. mentimeter) that could be used in physical, virtual and even hybrid types of meetings (physical and virtual) should be considered.

Online tools

Recent events with Covid-19 have proved that society is very adaptable and there is a huge increase in online interaction driven by “virtual by necessity”. Online stakeholder engagement can now be seen as a crucial mechanism for long-term dynamic stakeholder relationships. The most important lesson learned from the past few months is that web can overcome limitations of time and distance and it can be a good tool in allowing anonymity to encourage greater stakeholder involvement (Jeffery, 2009).

By switching to online, organisation is no longer restricted to mass communication campaigns, presented information if organised well in easily searchable format can be appealing to a large number of individual stakeholders in different times. Online communities can serve for members to share information and a way of engaging with external stakeholders (Barrett et al., 2016; Wilkin et al., 2018).

Organisations can have multi-stakeholder dialog using online tools such as engagement hubs or portals. A recent example is the Waveney Pathfinder project, led by Waveney District Council in partnership with Suffolk County Council and the Suffolk Coastal Futures project, focusing on coastal frontages at Corton and Easton Bavents. The Coastal Change Hub is an important tool used in the project to engage with local communities in managing the effects of coastal erosion. The hub works as a focal point for the provision of information such as fact sheets, video clips and technical reports, communication from the project team and feedback from local communities through forums and online surveys. The outputs of the project will be the production of reports identifying short- to long-term options for how coastal change can be managed. While offline stakeholder engagement in such a project is important, online communication tools enhance the effectiveness of offline two-way dialogue with multiple stakeholders.

Social media can provide new opportunities for societal actors to be informed, they can easily use such platforms to identify common interests and express their opinions and in this way the internet can be a powerful tool in stakeholder engagement (Lutz and Hoffmann, 2013).

Using online tools organisation can engage a much wider group of stakeholders with no limitations of geographic location, travel options, time and resource-consuming issues associated with offline engagement. Online toolkits can be effective in minimisation of risks associated with consumer rejection, help building trust in an organisation and improve the quality of decision-making process.

Step 5: Respond and implement

The fifth step of meaningful stakeholder engagement is to respond and implement. After the organisation is completed the consultation with stakeholders, analysis of the obtained data should be completed. What suggestions were presented, any concerns raised and what are the priorities that need to be addressed. In order to manage identified issues, you should follow simple steps:

• Initial outline of measures to manage issue
• Assess measures to manage issue: time; cost; capacity; effectiveness
• Consult with stakeholders and organisation department re-measures
• Develop management plan: objectives; measures; responsibilities; targets
• Monitor and evaluate progress and adjust necessary

Step 6: Monitor, evaluate and document

The final stage of stakeholder engagement is monitoring, evaluation and documentation. There are various international standards available to be used as a reference point (Appendix 1), this should be done by case study working group (broker), some of possible steps are represented in Box 2. Lessons learned will drive future engagement and are a critical aspect of stakeholder engagement process.

Box 2: Possible steps of monitoring and evaluation

1. Are project outputs, outcomes and impacts in the process of stakeholder engagement identified, verified and understood by the organisation?
2. Are there any baseline data about attitude and stakeholder actions prior to the engagement in order to compare with post-engagement data?
3. Are stakeholders going to participate in the monitoring and evaluation? How?
4. Is there any measurement and reporting systems to permit track changes in stakeholder dialog?

This process of evaluation and feedback by stakeholders will be used for the adaptation of action plans developed (WP6) by site and also to tailor the RRI interventions.

Monitoring and evaluation is an ongoing process, and documenting, reporting and clear record keeping will enable the strengthening of stakeholder relationships with the organisation. Appropriate feedback to stakeholders is necessary in order to keep interested into organisation and also to ensure the fair relationships with stakeholders. The quality of relationships with stakeholders can vary over time and it is important to regularly review the state of relationships and level of their satisfaction. There should be at list a yearly survey by an independent party including baseline data and standard questions to allow benchmarking. Through the survey, organisation can evaluate the satisfaction level of engaged stakeholders and adjust their engagement process if necessary.

Here you can see the whole report.

Why is Quadruple Helix engagement so important?

By SalM on October 19, 2020 in News Articles

Participatory engagement including representatives from each sector of the research and innovation process in each phase of the project is essential for creating results from which all involved stakeholders can benefit. We establish a related engagement platform and appropriate guidelines to ensure effective participation.

Stakeholder engagement is a highly relevant activity, an ongoing process, that builds relationships between parties enabling information exchange. This process allows stakeholders affected by the decisions of organisation in question to contribute to the decision-making process.

The process of stakeholder engagement is voluntary, open, and active dialog, which identifies the current position of all parties included, outlines objectives and outcomes and identifies how to achieve them. Parties that are included in the engagement can change but the process of engagement continues. The process of stakeholder engagement is a multi-faceted process including (APGA Guideline for stakeholder engagement, 2015):

• Providing information;
• Capacity building to equip communities and stakeholders to effectively engage;
• Listening and responding to community and stakeholder concerns;
• Including communities and stakeholders in the relevant decision-making processes;
• Developing goodwill and an understanding of objectives and priorities which will lead to confidence in decisions;
• Establishing a realistic understanding of potential outcomes;
• Building an understanding of the decision-making process.

For stakeholder engagement to be effective there are some requirements: willingness and motivation of stakeholders to participate (Gunton et al., 2010); inclusivity of all possible interests (Reed, 2008); equal access to information and knowledge (Gunton et al., 2010; Gopnik et al., 2017).

Some barriers in the process of engagement can be identified as well such as: the participation is more tokenistic (cosmetic) rather than active (Pomeroy and Douvere, 2008; Echler et al., 2009; Gopnik et al., 2017; Flannery et al., 2018); unfamiliarity with the processes and activities of the organisation in question (Water, 2018); public can have deeply rooted value and belief system (local fisherman for e.g.) affecting the trust level in organisation in question (Jentoft and Knol, 2013).

The main value of engagement with stakeholders lies in the understanding of dialogue dynamics and enabled participation (Luoma-Aho, 2015).
Generally, engagement is referred as interaction between stakeholders and organisation where interaction influences stakeholder thoughts, actions and emotions toward organisation (Broodie et al., 2011).

Quadruple Helix

The benefits of quadruple helix stakeholder engagement by the development of collaborative networks are evident through access to knowledge, development of scientific competence, obtaining a competitive advantage through the acceleration of ideas, but significant challenges still remain: how to manage such relationships.
Engagement of stakeholders could be summarised as a six-step process (an adaptation of Jeffery, 2009; Figure 1.1.)

Stakeholder engagement – the role of QH in GRRIP

Quadruple helix stakeholders for GRRIP project represent a group of all stakeholders in one place with a function of reflecting societal needs.

They are expected to participate in the development (co-create) action plan for RRI interventions within demo sites. They will serve as a reflection group where sites will demonstrate openness with QH.

Through mutual learning and interaction, QH will support demo sites in the development of sustainable inclusion of QH involvement. The role of QH in GRRIP project is to include several points. Throughout QH engagement this reflexive working group will support institutionalising RRI and ensure that it is reflective of societal needs throughout the process.

Over the past couple of weeks, we have been publishing the 6 steps which were related to the topic on “How to engage with QH” and we tried to answer the questions that were most frequently asked on how to approach and deal with your stakeholders on the right way. To download the brochure which includes all of the previous steps click on the link below

GRRIP QH_brochure

Institutional and cultural change is important

By SalM on October 16, 2020 in News Articles

GRRIP is working on embedding sustainable Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI practices) in 4 research performing organisations (RPO) and 1 dual-function RPO and research funding organisation (RPO/RFO) (total 5 RPO&RFO) in the marine and maritime sectors to achieve institutional and cultural change.

Why we do this?

• STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT: Government boards of marine and maritime research organisations do not currently involve the public and all relevant stakeholders at the early stages of research strategies.
• OPEN ACCESS: Marine and maritime research organisations are reluctant to release their research data due to its high costs and IP concerns.
• GENDER EQUALITY: The marine and maritime research sector has a high proportion of engineers, a traditionally male career path, and with low gender equality improvement to date.

Why the institutional and cultural change?

During the 2000s, much work has been done on the concept of responsible research and innovation supported by EU projects. However, most of the projects related to the institutional change of research organizations (RPOs) and research funding organizations (RFOs) focused on one of the five keys individually. Relatively few of them focused on establishing responsible research and innovation practices in these organisations, as part of an integrated approach.

5 RPO & RFO involved in the institutional and cultural change

• PLOCAN is a multipurpose technical-scientific service infrastructure that provides support for research, technological development, and innovation in the marine and maritime sectors.
• MaREI conducts fundamental research relating to marine and renewable energy applications and constructs world-class marine technology demonstration systems.
• WaVEC works on marine renewable energies, offshore aquaculture, and ocean engineering solutions, working together with the business sector.
• Swansea University has a long history of working with business and industry, conducting world-class and internationally recognized research.
• ECN researches renewable energy solutions that help to create a sustainable future.

How we help them?

The sustainable expansion in Europe’s maritime economy has the potential to meet pressing needs for energy, food and economic growth. The GRRIP projects aim to implement Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) to fundamentally improve research in the Blue Economy in the following ways:

• RRI IN MARINE RESEARCH: We are embedding Responsible Research & Innovation into the governance framework of five marine and maritime institutions.
• ENGAGEMENT OF ALL RELEVANT STAKEHOLDERS: We are engaging the quadruple helix in all aspects of Responsible Research & Innovation governance. Academia, industry, policy, and society.
• FUNDING POLICIES: We examine how funding bodies can positively influence and encourage academia towards Responsible Research & Innovation via its funding policies and interaction.

EU Blue Economy Report 2020

By SalM on October 13, 2020 in News Articles

The report highlights that the European Green Deal and the European Strategy for data will necessitate reliable, accurate and centralised data for its initiatives.

The third edition of the report also includes new elements, which have an impact on the Blue Economy, including challenges like climate change, new sectors such as Submarine cables), enablers such as Maritime Spatial Planning, new areas of analysis such as Ecosystem Services or potential solutions like Multipurpose platforms.

Moreover, the report consists of:

1. Marine-based activities: include the activities undertaken in the ocean, sea and coastal areas, such as Marine living resources (capture fisheries and aquaculture), Marine minerals, Marine renewable energy, Desalination, Maritime transport and Coastal tourism.
2. Marine-related activities: activities which use products and/ or produce products and services from the ocean or marinebased activities like seafood processing, biotechnology, Shipbuilding and repair, Port activities, technology and equipment, digital services, and other.

However, the ocean has an economic value which is hard to quantify in terms of provision of resources, habitat for marine life, carbon sequestration, coastal protection, waste recycling and
storing, and processes that influence climate change and biodiversity. To the extent possible, the Report covers most of these issues too.

Following the implementation of the European Green deal, the report analyzes the impact of human factor on the marine environment, and especially on the ocean.

The human impact includes the greenhouse gases (GHGs) which are the main contributor to global warming and climate change. Climate change is expected to result in more frequently heat waves, forest fires and droughts in Southern and Central Europe. While, Northern Europe will become significantly wetter, and winter floods could become common.

In the meantime, the report outlines some challenging issues, such as the general economic and political context, providing a background to the Blue Economy, including the sources of financing available for the Blue Economy projects.

This article was taken from the MarineTeck website. Please click on the link below to get to the original source of the article.

https://themarineteck.com/blue-economy-2020-report-outlines-eus-sustainability-developments/

To read the Blue Economy Report prepared by the EU please click on the link below to download it.

EU-The-Blue-Economy-report-2020-2020_10

The Responsible Innovation Summit 2020

By SalM on October 11, 2020 in News Articles

In the 20^th and 21^st of October, Dublin will be the (virtual) capital of Responsible Innovation in Europe. The 2020 edition of the Responsible Innovation Summit hosts more than 250 high-impact delegates in the vibrant field of Responsible Innovation.

We have invited three guests to this week’s Responsible Innovation Story:

• Szilvia Szabo, Founder of Dublin-based consultancy “The Impacter” and organizer of the Responsible Innovation Summit. This virtual event
• Mary Mac Sweeney, Deputy Head of Enterprise and Economic Development at Dublin City Council and
• Norman Thompson, Economic Development Researcher at Dublin City Council, have both strongly supported the Responsible Innovation Summit from its beginning in 2017.

Organizer Szilvia Szabo:

“The main mission of the Responsible Innovation Summit is to unite leaders and put things into action.”

This year’s edition aims to inspire actors from business, research and policy to build back better in the aftermath of the pandemic.

“Long-term strategies are often not that actionable. Now with the pandemic we have a clean slate and can make things better.”

Join the Leaders of Change and help to build back better.

Enjoy watching the full interview wit Szilvia Szabo, Mary Mac Sweeney and Norman Thompson at https://youtu.be/K7IjyxUKit8!

Click on the time stamps to watch the respective speaker:

01:09 Szilvia Szabo on using virtual events to find a common language of Responsible Innovation

07:39 Mary Mac Sweeney on systemic change in Responsible Innovation

14:44 Norman Thompson on the vital role of collaboration in Responsible Innovation

This article has been taken from the LivingInnovation website. Please follow the link to the original source of this article

https://www.living-innovation.net/news/article?id=182&title=the-responsible-innovation-summit-2020

The Gender Gap in Science, How to Measure it, How to Reduce it?

By SalM on October 9, 2020 in News Articles

What is meant by gender gap?

The gender gap is the difference between women and men “in terms of their levels of participation, access, rights, remuneration or benefits” . It is usually analyzed and measured through various specific indicators. The Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI), for instance, aims to measure this gap in four key areas: health, education, economics and politics. The Global Gender Gap Report is published annually by the World Economic Forum since 2006 and ranks countries according to the value of their GGGI.

What about the gender gap in science?

According to the UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS) fewer than 30% of the world’s researchers are women, which reflects a clear gender gap in science. But to truly understand and reduce the gender gap, it is necessary to go beyond these numbers and identify the various factors that deter women from pursuing careers or succeeding in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

What distinguishes your project from the numerous other projects or publications addressing the gender gap in science?

Indeed, there is intensive research on the gender gap in science and a lot of literature has already been published.

Our project is distinct from prior works in several ways. First, its scope is global rather than restricted to a specific part of the world. It is also multidisciplinary rather than restricted to one discipline. Another specificity is that, though it will result in several research publications, and the bulk of the work has been done by professionals, the project leaders are a combination of scientists and specialists of gender gap related issues.

What happened within the project?

The project A Global Approach to the Gender Gap in Mathematical, Computing, and Natural Sciences: How to measure it? How to reduce it? in short Gender Gap in Science project has taken place from 2017 to 2019.

It contributed to the analysis of the Gender Gap in Science from three complementary perspectives:

• The Global Survey of Scientists addresses issues related to missing role models, feelings of critical exclusion, harassment, or low participation and retention rates. See part 2/9 (to be published 14/10/2020) and part 3/9.
• The Study of Publication Patterns provides insights on the proportion of women as research authors or the presence of women publishing in renowned journals. See part 4/9 and part 5/9 .
• The Database of Good Practices introduces a conceptual framework to analyze them, in order to provide evidence of effectiveness and impact. See part 6/9 (to be published 11/11/2020).

What are the recommendations of the Gender Gap in Science project?

There are recommendations based on the findings of the project and from discussions held within the network created around the project.

• They are intended for instructors and parents, who have an important role to play in changing societal perceptions and stereotypes towards women in science and in engaging girls in primary, secondary, and higher education. See part 7/9 (to be published 18/11/2020).
• There are also recommendations for scientific or educational organizations of all kinds, since these are the places where scientific life takes place daily. See also part 7/9.
• There are finally recommendations for Scientific Unions and other worldwide organizations, in particular the unions members of the project. By Unions we mean worldwide members of the International Science Council, in particular those that are members of our project. See part 8/9 (to be published 25/11/2020).

Who funded the project and what were its partners?

It was mainly funded by the International Science Council (ISC). Its partners also contributed to the budget.

Eleven organizations have joined their efforts. Seven of these are union members of the International Science Council: namely the International Mathematical Union (IMU) through its Committee for Women in Mathematics (leader); the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) (coleader); the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP); the International Astronomical Union (IAU); the International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS); the International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM); and the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (IUHPST). The other four organizations are the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), through its project STEM and Gender Advancement (SAGA); Gender in Science, Innovation, Technology and Engineering (GenderInSITE); the Organization of Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD); and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), through ACM-W.

This article was taken from the IYBSSD2022 website. Please follow the link posted below to get more informations

The gender gap in science, how to measure it, how to reduce it? 1/9

Can the Ocean Fix Our Broken Food Systems?

By SalM on October 8, 2020 in News Articles

With animal husbandry responsible for more greenhouse gases than all the world’s transport systems combined, the food production industry is a key contributor to the climate emergency. As populations continue to expand, and with demand for animal-based food projected to grow by 70% by 2050, we need to rethink current food systems to ensure they deliver accessible, healthy diets and are sustainable for the planet.

The ocean covers 70% of our planet, yet only 7% is used for food production. While the ocean offers huge potential, we must be conscious that 93% of wild fisheries are already “fully” or “over-”fished, according to estimates by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. We cannot continue to use these resources at the scale we have so far. Fish farming offers an opportunity to better use the ocean for food production while alleviating pressure on fisheries.

Aquaculture, and specifically farmed salmon—one of the most consumed fish worldwide—can help meet the growing demand for sustainable and healthy foods. Salmon is a nutrient-rich food that provides many health benefits to consumers. It is high in omega-3 fatty acids, minerals and vitamins, which can help reduce the risk of many cardiovascular diseases. What is less known is that responsibly farmed salmon is also one of the most resource-efficient animal proteins, requiring less land, fresh water, food and energy to produce. This powerful combination of strong nutritional and environmental profiles means that farmed salmon should be an important part of future healthy and sustainable food systems and diets.

However, like any food-production sector, the salmon-farming industry has faced challenges—from the use of marine ingredients in feed, to managing escapes and possible sea-lice outbreaks—which must be effectively addressed to ensure long-term responsible and sustainable operations.

And while significant progress has been made in recent years, there is still more to be done to improve the environmental performance of fish farming. To support this mission, the Global Salmon Initiative (GSI) was established in 2013 to accelerate improvements at speed and scale that will ensure salmon farming continues to offer nutritious and planet-friendly food. GSI’s members use collective problem-solving to drive sustainability improvements across the entire global industry.

Global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – No Hunger: GRRIP Project is working to improve fundamental research through the implementation of RRI contributes to marine food security and sustainability.

This article was taken from the World Ocean Initiative website. To read the full article on the original source written and prepared by Sophie Ryan please follow the link posted below

https://www.woi.economist.com/can-the-ocean-fix-our-broken-food-systems/

Adapting to climate change a test to tackle societal issues

By SalM on October 7, 2020 in News Articles

The new research mission taking up the challenge of adapting to climate change will be a test of whether the EU can tackle societal issues head on, says the chair of the mission board and former EU climate commissioner, Connie Hedegaard.

“This is a test. If the institutions are serious about this, it requires some substantial structure to deliver it. Otherwise, it would just be some project, which is not something that we need now,” Hedegaard told Science|Business.

Adapting to climate change is one of the EU’s five research moonshots, a new type of programme aiming to address specific and pressing problems, that are due to get off the ground in 2021.

While the mission on adapting to climate change sets a specific objective, many strands of research and much work on implementation, are needed to meet it.  A year ago, the European Commission asked 15 experts, headed by Hedegaard, to come up with a route map for the mission, setting out how to ensure food chains, buildings, transport and governance systems can be made resilient in the face of changing climate, and to prepare for future climate disasters, such as forest fires and droughts.

The board suggests a three-pronged approach, assisting communities and regions in understanding, preparing and managing climate risks; selecting and supporting 200 communities and regions to set targets and plot how to reach them; and scaling up 100 demonstrators of resilience across Europe.

Demonstrators in one region can inform another region that is struggling with the same problem, but in order for the knowledge transfer to happen, there must be moves to systematically share data. This is an area where Europe still has a lot of learning to do, says Hedegaard.

Similarly, at a community level, companies, public institutions and researchers have to learn to share knowledge. “We have most of the solutions, but somehow the knowledge and the solutions out there, are out of sync,” said Hedegaard. “[The mission] is about seeing how we can bring these projects more in sync.”

To succeed, the mission needs clear structures in place, with all 200 regions and partner communities establishing local governance platforms through which they can systematically deliver change.

Each region must devise a way of enabling knowledge sharing, enabling different public and private players to set out their pitches for participating in the mission. These pitches will have to encompass each region’s local climate change challenges and specify innovations needed to help address them.

To kick start the process, Hedegaard says the commission should select the 200 participating regions in the next six months.

Regions will not be left on their own to deliver the changes. Rather, the board proposes the mission should provide horizontal support through communities of practice, which bring together experts, industry, and other organisations to foster innovation.

The commission will need to translate the ideas coming from these platforms into calls for research under Horizon Europe, says Hedegaard. All of this will require substantial structures to be in place.

Citizen engagement will play a crucial role, with the moonshot putting emphasis on getting people to act as local innovators and respond to local challenges. This is something the commission is very ambitious about, Hedegaard said, though she strikes a sceptical note, “To be frank, that sounds really nice, but how to do it? How to make real interactive solutions, where people not only feel included, but are included?”

Each region will be required to set out how it is hoped to engage their citizens with the mission.

Citizen engagement will also play a role in behaviour change, another important aspect of the mission. For Hedegaard, Europe is great at dealing with climate issues from the perspective of natural sciences, technology and the economics, but it is not fostering the behaviour change needed to adapt to the changing climate.

She wants research in behavioural sciences to inform the mission and the regions involved on how to make changes and convince citizens to follow them.

“If [the mission] succeeds, we will have all our municipalities, regions and citizens working consciously with adaption to climate change,” Hedegaard said.

The plans for the mission are set out in the board’s report, handed to the European Commission two weeks ago. Now, the commission will have to assess the plans, assign a budget, instruments, and, Hedegaard notes, formally decide to adopt the mission by December.

Although due to start in 2021, it could take a few years before the mission is active on the ground, if the EU institutions fail to show ambition. That is something we do not have the time for, says Hedegaard.

This article was taken from the ScienceBusiness Website. Please click on the link below to get to the original source of this article

https://sciencebusiness.net/news/eu-moonshot-adapting-climate-change-requires-structural-investment-and-citizen-engagement

Success Stories of Scientific Crowdsourcing

By SalM on October 6, 2020 in News Articles

In her role as Associate Professor of Innovation Management at Copenhagen Business School and Scientific Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft’s Open Innovation in Science Center in Vienna, she has an extensive record of accomplishment in both Open and Responsible Innovation. For Marion Pötz, cutting-edge research institutions and competitive companies need more collaborative approaches now more than ever.

“One player alone cannot tackle the complex challenges of the 21^st century. We need collaborative action.”

Our most important insights from this interview with Marion Pötz:

• More collaborative forms of innovation are on the rise in both the public and the private sphere.
• However, to harness the full potential of open innovation processes, we need to establish a trustworthy and respectful stakeholder process.
• Digital technologies can help us to hear the voices of all stakeholders involved and to see the real-life impacts we jointly create.

Enjoy watching the full interview at https://youtu.be/-lR1r6rjGiY!

Click on the time stamps to watch the respective topics:

00:00 Responsible Innovation to Solve Societal Problems

02:11 Upstream Engagement with Stakeholders

03:56 Challenges and Opportunities for Responsible Business

04:55 Crowdsourcing in the Mental Health Field

06:24 Secret Ingredients to Successful Crowdsourcing

08:16 A Trustworthy Online Environment

09:48 Expertise by Experience

11:19 AI to Measure Research Impacts on Society

12:21 Ecosystems of Open Innovation

This interview was conducted and published by the LivingInnovation. Follow the link to the original source posted below

https://www.living-innovation.net/news/article?id=179&title=success-stories-of-scientific-crowdsourcing

Science and Innovation as the Way Out of the Crisis

By SalM on October 4, 2020 in News Articles

In 2014, the European Commission awarded a €2 million prize to an unknown German biopharmaceutical company called CureVac. At the time, the award was a way to help the company pursue a completely new approach to vaccine development. This approach was very risky and so only public money could help.

One year later, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation invested in the company, which later became a multi-billion euro unicorn. Ingmar Hoerr, founder and CEO, always recalls that without the EU funding his journey would have been very different.

Fast-forward to 2020: CureVac’s pioneering efforts on a COVID-19 vaccine mean that right now the company is busy developing some of the most significant, valuable technologies of our lifetimes. Pending safe and effective trial outcomes, the EU is in preliminary talks with CureVac to purchase more than 400 million COVID-19 vaccine doses.

EU investments in research, innovation and science have time and again proven to be prescient and transformative. The problem is that we are very bad at telling our stories.

While not every investment is as resounding a success as the grant to CureVac (you need to tolerate failure to boost innovation) it simply makes sense to do everything in our power to support the researchers, innovators and entrepreneurs whose work and ingenuity helps make the world a better, healthier and more prosperous place.

Prior to coronavirus, consensus was building in Brussels and in capitals across the continent that it was time to increase the budget of Horizon Europe, the EU’s main funding vehicle for research and innovation (R&I). For that reason, we are very proud that, back in 2019, the European Commission proposed to allocate 100 billion euro to Horizon Europe for the period 2021-2027.

This week, as the European Council of 27 heads of state and governments meets for a special session, we have a question: Why on earth does the European Council want to slash Horizon Europe’s budget to 90.9 billion?

This U-turn is a terrible idea. We are all adjusting to completely new ways to work, attend school, shop for groceries and spend our leisure time, not to mention find a cure for a virus that this time last year did not exist.

Combine this slightly terrifying real-time global pandemic response experiment with the worrisome fact that struggling private-sector businesses are cutting their own research budgets, and over the past few months the need for more public funding for R&I has become more, not less urgent.

Along the years, we have worked closely with the women and men in universities, businesses and government whose vision and dedication form the foundation of Europe’s unparalleled innovation ecosystem.

Whether the vaccine comes from CureVac or any number of similar efforts currently underway, we have faith in Europe’s scientists and innovators. But even after we vanquish the disease, another long-term threat to our wellbeing remains – climate change.

Two weeks ago, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen reiterated in her State of the European Union address the importance of a green, digital economy that can help “propel ourselves forwards to the world of tomorrow”.

She proposed that the EU increases its greenhouse gas emission-reduction target to 55% below 1990 levels within a decade.

This is a laudable, necessary goal. It helps put us on the path to climate neutrality by 2050, the basis of the European Green Deal. The increased target is also a tacit acknowledgement of mounting public support for climate action.

Last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to make China carbon neutral by 2060. Last Friday across Europe and the world, we saw another major global climate protest led by Greta Thunberg and her peers.

Yet without more research and innovation, the promise of the European Green Deal is certain to remain unfulfilled, the pleas from our children and grandchildren unheeded.

According to the International Energy Agency, even if we deploy all the technologies currently available to us (solar, wind, energy efficiency, etc.), we still won’t be able to achieve the emission reductions we know we need to reduce climate change-related risks from wildfires, droughts, massive storms and melting glaciers.

President von der Leyen has wisely endorsed putting 30% of EU funds toward various climate programmes. Similarly, she wants to ensure about 37% of EU economic recovery funds help meet Green Deal goals.

Since much of these funds will go directly to member states, national governments must live up to their own end of the bargain. They must ensure their own recovery programs help deliver on urgent EU priorities like the Green Deal.

Let’s be clear: From a global pandemic ravaging our public health, to member state economies on the brink, to the rolling catastrophe that is climate change, the challenges we face are daunting.

When the EU increases funding for R&I, it essentially signals confidence in its own ability to meet these challenges. But what if the EU does not deliver? People will grow more cynical, convinced the EU is neither up to the task nor worthy of their support.

This is something we cannot afford. As Jeremy Farrar, the CEO of the Welcome Trust, recently said: the only reasonable way out of this pandemic is science. We would go a step further and say that the only plausible exit strategy for our current global challenges is Science and Innovation.

This article was taken from the EurActiv website and it was written by Pascal Lamy and Carlos Moedas. Click on the link below to read the article on the original source

Science and Innovation as the way out of the crisis