SalM – Page 6 – GRRIP Project

New plan to support green and digital transition – EU recovery

By SalM on October 1, 2020 in News Articles

Yesterday, the European Commission adopted a Communication on a new European Research Area for Research and Innovation. Based on excellence, competitive, open and talent-driven, the new European Research Area will improve Europe’s research and innovation landscape, accelerate the EU’s transition towards climate neutrality and digital leadership, support its recovery from the societal and economic impact of the coronavirus crisis, and strengthen its resilience against future crises.

The Commission set out strategic objectives and actions to be implemented in close cooperation with the Member States, in order to prioritise investments and reforms in research and innovation, improve access to excellence for researchers across the EU and enable research results to reach the market and the real economy. Additionally, the Communication will further promote researchers’ mobility, skills and career development opportunities within the EU, gender equality, as well as better access to publicly funded peer-reviewed science.

Executive Vice-President for A Europe Fit for the Digital Age, Margrethe Vestager, said: “The EU is already leading innovation through its research and scientific excellence. We want to build on that and step up our efforts towards achieving breakthrough market-driven innovations that will contribute to a green digital Europe and will boost growth, job creation and our competiveness in the global scene. Today we are setting a new ambition for a European Research Area to facilitate cooperation and contribute to a more competitive European industry.”

Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, said: “We live in times when scientific activities require faster and effective collaborations. We need to strengthen the European Research Area. An area embracing all of Europe, because knowledge has no territorial boundaries, because scientific knowledge grows with collaborations, because knowledge is trusted if there is open scrutiny of its quality. It has also more chances to achieve peaks of excellence and support an innovative and risk taking industry to shape a resilient, green and digital future.”

Launched in 2000, the European Research Area has made major achievements over the past years – yet, today’s context prompts us to rethink how to strengthen its role, better define and implement its key objectives, as well as make it more attractive as a common space for creating valuable research and innovation. Moreover, Europe is currently facing significant societal, ecological and economic challenges that are aggravated by the coronavirus crisis. Research and innovation is therefore crucial in addressing these challenges, delivering on Europe’s recovery and speeding up the twin green and digital transitions.

Objectives of the new European Research Area

Building on Europe’s innovation leadership and scientific excellence, the new European Research Area aims to incentivise better coordination and cooperation among the EU, its Member States and the private sector; lead to more investments in research and innovation; strengthen mobility of researchers, their expertise, and the flow of knowledge;

The Communication defines four strategic objectives:

Prioritise investments and reforms in research and innovation towards the green and digital transition, to support Europe’s recovery and increase competitiveness.

EU support towards research and innovation is foreseen through various programmes, such as the Horizon Europe, the Cohesion policy, and the Next Generation EU. To bring about the required positive change and ensure quality of results, EU support must be complemented by investments from Member States and the private sector. The Communication reaffirms the target of 3% of GDP to be invested on EU research and innovation and prompts further cooperation among Member states, and alignment of national efforts, by setting a target of 5% of national public funding to joint research and development programmes and European partnerships, by 2030.

The principle of excellence, which entails that the best researchers with the best ideas can obtain funding, remains the cornerstone for all investments under the European Research area.

Improve access to excellent facilities and infrastructures for researchers across the EU.

Member States’ research and innovation investment remains uneven, which translates into gaps in scientific excellence and innovation output that need to be bridged. The EU already supports lagging countries, including with tailor-made support on the ground, and Horizon Europe will further ensure so, through enhanced collaborations with more experienced counterparts, in order to improve access to excellence. The Commission proposes that Member States, lagging behind the EU average research and innovation investment over GDP, direct their efforts to increase their investments by 50% in the next 5 years.

To this end, mobility opportunities for researchers to access excellence and expand their experience will be created through dedicated training and mobility schemes between industry and academia. In order to reflect the progress towards research based on excellence, Member States lagging behind the EU average on highly cited publications should reduce the gap to the EU average by at least one third in the next 5 years.

Transfer results to the economy to boost business investments and market uptake of research output, as well as foster EU competitiveness and leadership in the global technological setting.

In view of speeding up the transfer of research results into the real economy and supporting the implementation of the new Industrial Strategy, the Commission will encourage and guide the development of common technology plans with industry that will allow crowding in more private investments in key international projects. This will foster the development of competitive technologies in key strategic areas, while securing a stronger European presence in the global scene.

In parallel, following a detailed monitoring exercise, the Commission will explore the possibility of developing a networking framework that will build on existing entities and capacities, such as centres of excellence or Digital Innovation Hubs, to facilitate collaboration and exchange of best practices by 2022. Still in this two-year framework, the Commission will update and develop guiding principles, which will ensure that innovation can be valorised and rewarded, as well as a code of practice for the smart use of intellectual property, to ensure access to effective and affordable intellectual property protection.

Strengthen mobility of researchers and free flow of knowledge and technology, through greater cooperation among Member States, to ensure that everyone benefits from research and its results.

The EU will aim to improve career development opportunities to attract and retain the best researchers in Europe as well as incentivise researchers to pursue a career outside academia. To this end, it will also deliver, by the end of 2024, in partnership with Member States and research organisations, a toolbox of support for researchers’ careers. The toolbox will consist of the following elements: a Researchers Competence Framework to identify key skills and mismatches; a mobility scheme to support exchange and mobility of researchers across industry and academia; targeted training and professional development opportunities under Horizon Europe; and, a one-stop shop portal for people to more easily find information and manage their learning and careers.

The EU will work towards accomplishing the above strategic objectives, in close cooperation with the Member States, through 14 actions that are linked to each other and will be instrumental in realising the European Research Area. Furthermore, the Commission will drive a European Forum for Transition, a strategic discussion forum with Member States that will support them in the coherent implementation of these four objectives. The Commission will also propose, by the first half of 2021, that Member States adopt a Pact for Research and Innovation in Europe, which will reinforce their commitment to shared policies and principles and indicate the areas where they will jointly develop priority actions.

As part of its initiatives to support the recovery and build a green and digital Europe, the Commission, in addition to the new European Research Area, adopted today a new Digital Education Action Plan, to adapt education and training systems to the digital age, as well as a Communication on the European Education Area as a driver for job creation and growth.

To read the full article please follow the link to the original source, European Comission website

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_1749

How successful are the initiatives in the institutional change?

By SalM on September 29, 2020 in News Articles

The GRRIP Project team is currently working on the State of the Art Review on Responsible Research and Innovation in research organizations to identify the most successful initiatives, projects, and methods that have generated institutional change.

The focus is on identifying the most successful initiatives, projects, and methods of delivering: Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) Action Plans for the institutional change in Research Performing Organisations (RPOs) and Research Funding Organisations (RFOs), and Quadruple Helix (QH) platform development and operation.

The purpose is not just whether the institutional effort has been made in relevant directions, but also what effects these have had on institutions and their environments.

RRI or similar Action Plans which have successfully generated institutional change in RPO&RFOs

THE GRRIP PROJECT is reviewing EU previous and current RRI related projects and selected RPO & RFOs with embedded RRI practices to learn from their experience: ensure maximum use of excellence during all stages of AP, determining barriers, challenges and mitigation, indicator development, and measuring RRI benefits. Further, through engagement, the intention is to learn from their experience and foster collaborations.

Quadruple Helix (QH) platform development and operation

What is Quadruple Helix? Innovation system model where not only the government, industry, and universities intervene, but the citizen himself is another crucial actor within the system.

Selected EU projects which have extensively and successfully engaged with the QH are being reviewed. It is imperative to understand the methodologies used for the different members of the QH to determine which approaches work best. In particular, the most successful dialogue methodology for the engagement with societal actors will be established.

While producing this review our team goes beyond the compilation of information on other projects. They developed clear and explicit criteria of success in both as an essential part of the Review delivery and one of the conditions for effective linkages with other activities of the project.

Partners in the implementation of the activity

The Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands (PLOCAN) – Experienced in detecting initiatives, projects, and methods mainly in the framework of its principal research lines which include marine renewable energies, ocean observation and monitoring, marine autonomous vehicles, marine governance and knowledge transfer.
The National Research Council (CNR) – Coordinates MARINA (Responsible Research and Innovation for the Marine Sector). Leader of the work package on MARINA platform creation.
Hochschule Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences (HSRW) – Coordinates NUCLEUS (RRI for RPO, Education, Industry. Inclusive engagement Civil society, Communication).
Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) – Coordinates PRINTEGER (Governance and Ethics and RRI Tools for policy managers researchers).
DMU – Coordinates CONSIDER (Civil Society Organisations in Designing Research Governance Civil Society and Digital single market).
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) – Direct participation in a number of European projects to be reviewed.
Responsibility within the UN system for directly relevant workstreams on ethics of science and technology, including management of normative instruments and related processes (Recommendation on Science and Scientific Researchers, Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights).
International Consortium of Research Staff Associations (ICoRSA) – Coordinator of the COST Action proposal SECURE (Sustainable Employment and Careers for Researcher Empowerment). ICoRSA has an extensive network of approx. 500,000 researchers globally, available through its member associations.

First Map of Marine Structures Shows How Much we’ve Modified the Oceans

By SalM on September 24, 2020 in News Articles

With our long history of altering the environment through manmade structures, we humans sure have made our mark on the Earth in our relatively short time here. Scientists in Australia have turned their attention to what this perpetual development means for the world’s marine environments, calculating the extent of our construction footprint on the oceans for the first time ever.

The research was carried out at Australia’s University of Sydney and the Sydney Institute of Marine Science, with the team collating data on marine-built structures of all kinds. These include oil rigs, wind farms, the length of telecommunication cables, commercial ports, bridges and tunnels, artificial reefs and aquaculture farms, with the data painstakingly sourced from the individual sectors of these different industries.

The result is what the scientists call the first map of human development in the world’s oceans, revealing how much of the marine environment had been altered by our activity. According to the team, a total of around 30,000 sq km (11,600 sq mi) has been modified by human construction, which amounts to 0.008 percent of the entire ocean. But as lead author Dr Ana Bugnot explains, the effects are a lot more far-reaching than that.

“The effects of built structures extend beyond their direct physical footprint,” she tells New Atlas. “Marine construction can modify surrounding environments by changing ecological and sediment characteristics, water quality and hydrodynamics, as well as noise and electromagnetic fields.”

Dr Bugnot and her team drew on existing data and research to quantify the impact of these types of flow-on effects, and found that the footprint of these structures is actually two million square kilometers (770,200 sq mi), more than 0.5 percent of the ocean as a whole. Among the more surprising revelations from the analysis were that 40 percent of the physical footprint of all structures can be attributed to aquaculture farms in China, and that noise pollution can carry up to 20 km (12 mi) from commercial ports.

While evidence of manmade alterations to the oceans dates back thousands of years, to the early construction of ports and breakwaters to protect low-lying coasts, the phenomenon began to accelerate around the mid-point of the 20th century, according to the team. This construction mostly takes place in coastal areas, and to better understand this trend the team cast an eye to the future, assessing data on planned projects and assuming a business-as-usual approach.

“The numbers are alarming,” Dr Bugnot says. “For example, infrastructure for power and aquaculture, including cables and tunnels, is projected to increase by 50 to 70 percent by 2028. Yet this is an underestimate: there is a dearth of information on ocean development, due to poor regulation of this in many parts of the world.”

The team hopes the study can draw attention to the importance of conserving marine environments, and that the findings can provide a starting point for further investigation and tools to track of these types of ocean construction projects on an ongoing basis.

“The estimates of marine construction obtained are substantial and serve to highlight the urgent concern and need for the management of marine environments,” says Dr Bugnot. “We hope these estimates will trigger national and international initiatives and boost global efforts for integrated marine spatial planning. To achieve this, it is important to rump up efforts for detailed mapping of historical and existing marine habitats and ocean construction.”

The research was published in the journal Nature Sustainability.

Source: University of Sydney via EurekAlert

Call for Researchers – EMPORIA4KT Project

By SalM on September 23, 2020 in News Articles

The EMPORIA4KT project is offering a comprehensive training and mentoring programme for Blue Economy researchers to enhance their skills in innovation and technology transfer. This programme will provide training and mentoring to participants to equip them with vital knowledge transfer (KT) skills for their future careers in Blue Economy innovation and will also provide valuable networking opportunities.

Participants will learn how to direct Research and Development towards market, industry, and private and public investment. They will also explore how to de-risk the Early Stage Technology (EST) development process and how to make ESTs more attractive to investment at an early stage of development.

The programme will be divided into two phases. The first phase will consist of 3 to 5 days of online workshops (March 2021) when researchers will receive training in skills related to innovation and technology transfer activities. The second phase consists of a 9-month mentoring programme (April – December 2021), during which participants will meet at three face to face events in each participating country, in addition to regular online meetings via virtual collaboration tools. Within national-based teams of four people, participants will determine the best commercialisation routes for real case studies of Early Stage Technologies in the Blue Economy. Each team will receive support from experienced EMPORIA4KT project partners and mentors in relevant academic and industry fields of the Blue Economy.

Three teams in each participating country will present at a national level, and the team with the best performance will represent their country in the EMPORIA4KT final international event in Brussels. At this final event, the five nationally selected teams will pitch their commercialisation plan for their Early Stage Technology, to an audience of industry, public bodies, private investors and peers. The EST pitch will be followed by a brokerage event, providing the opportunity for networking and KT collaborations. The remaining national ESTs will be presented by poster at this international event.

The EMPORIA4KT project plans to raise additional funding for proof-of-concept studies for the winning EST.

The EMPORIA4KT Blue Economy Technology Transfer Programme will accept 12 Blue Economy researchers per country.

Costs: There are no fees for the mentoring programme or the phase 1 online workshop. Travel costs for attending the three national events that will take place during the 9-month mentoring programme in phase 2 will be covered by EMPORIA4KT. Accommodation will also be covered if necessary. All other meetings and collaborations will be conducted online. Travel costs for the teams selected to attend the international event will also be covered by EMPORIA4KT.

Time commitment: Attendance at the phase 1 online workshops and the phase 2 three national events is essential. Travel to the EMPORIA4KT final international event will be essential if you are part of the team selected to represent your country. Participants will also have approximately two meetings per month with their group and will have follow-up tasks to complete in relation to these meetings. It is expected the time commitment for meetings and follow-up work will be 10 to 15 hours per month for each researcher. Candidate interviews (if necessary) are expected to be conducted from October 21st to October 23rd 2020.

Criteria and Requirements: To view the requirements and criteria please select your country below:

Follow the link posted below to the EMPORIA4KT Project website and apply for this program!

https://www.emporia4kt.com/copy-of-technology-transfer-program?fbclid=IwAR27DWCZwChi088mS-F2n7ZTQNk6NF8xo8q1KiuHNQXITnt3Bqrwmg7uZdg

Diversity, democracy and solidarity in EU societies

By SalM on September 16, 2020 in News Articles

Can ethnographic case studies and quantitative research help to understand the ways stigmatised or conflictual youngsters engage with social, environmental and political issues, and how they create opportunities for social change? How do populists use social media? How could we use history to encourage debate amongst teenagers about religious tolerance?

The projects presented in the new brochure, Diversity, democracy and solidarity in EU societies, prepared jointly by the Research Executive Agency (REA) and Directorate-General Research and Innovation (DG RTD), address these and many other questions, all sharing a common goal: helping understand how to create a more cohesive, inclusive and democratic Europe.

The publication highlights 15 Horizon 2020 research projects out of a much bigger portfolio of EU-funded projects aimed to help better understand Europe’s diversity, cultural and social unity, and thus find solutions for shaping Europe’s future. It gives a short overview of the selected projects, allowing the reader to find further information, results and outcomes on the indicated project websites and on the CORDIS website.

Among the projects, RELOCAL tries to understand the strengths of localities when applying cohesion policies and COHSMO aims at identifying structures and processes behind territorial inequalities. INDIVEU, EUIDEA and EU3D want to create a critical mass of knowledge on differentiated EU integration, to understand to which extent it can contribute to a more cohesive EU.

RECONNECT aims at understanding and providing solutions to the recent challenges faced by the EU. With an explicit focus on strengthening the EU’s legitimacy through democracy and the rule of law, it seeks to build a new narrative for Europe, enabling the EU to become more attuned to the expectations of its citizens. DEMOS and PACE try to understand the roots and consequences of populism and find strategies to address it better, analysing positive examples for a solid democratic and institutional foundation of the EU. Similarly, POPREBEL examines the rise of populism, focusing on Central and Eastern Europe.

REMINDER studies mobility to understand the reasons behind it and the impact of mobility of people within the EU, finding that the receiving country benefits from it even if some political and media narratives may portray it in a different way.

RETOPEA wants to promote a more harmonious society and focuses on religious tolerance, limiting radicalisation and promoting religious coexistence. UNREST examines the memory of historical conflicts, recognising them as inevitable elements of society, but proposing another approach to their interpretation to avoid radicalisation.

CATCH-EyoU, PROMISE and EURYKA focus on young generations of European citizens, exploring the challenges they face and how they participate in politics. The projects explore the reasons behind social disengagement to understand whether it relates to the decline of social justice and territorial cohesion. Their overall aim is to understand how to strengthen youth political participation and European democratic life for more inclusive societies.

Download the brochure to read more about the selected projects.

This article was taken from the European Commission website. Follow the link to the original source

https://ec.europa.eu/info/news/diversity-democracy-and-solidarity-eu-societies-new-brochure-rea-and-dg-rtd-2020-sep-16_en

Advantages and disadvantages of societal engagement

By SalM on September 15, 2020 in News Articles

ABSTRACT

We view Societal Engagement (SE) as a key element of Responsible Innovation (RI) and want to better understand the advantages and disadvantage of SE, both in theory and in practice. Moreover, we are interested in the role that Research and Technology Organizations (RTOs) might play in bridging the gap between fundamental research in academia and applied research, development and deployment. We reviewed relevant literature in order to identify and discuss the potential advantages and disadvantages of SE, and conducted a case study of one SE initiative within a RTO in order to understand the advantages and disadvantages of SE in practice. The paper closes with a discussion of responsibility and ethics that the organizing of SE would require.

Introduction

Much scholarship on Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and Responsible Innovation (RI) has focused on work being done in university environments. Only fairly recently, attention has started to move also to work being done in private, governmental or civil society sectors (Fisher 2019) (e.g. Lubberink et al. 2017, 2019; Ahrweiler et al. 2019; Brand and Blok 2019; Long et al. 2020; van de Poel et al. 2020). This move is fortunate, because both efforts in fundamental research, typically done by academia, and efforts in innovation, applied research, development and deployment, typically done by industry, government and society, are needed to realize the overall ambition of RRI/RI: to align research and innovation with the values, needs and expectations of society.

Below, we are interested in the role that Research and Technology Organizations (RTOs) might play in this overall ambition. RTOs, such as the German Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft or the Finnish VTT, aim to fill the gap that can exist between fundamental research and applied research and innovation. RTOs can play an intermediary role and help to promote and mainstream RRI/RI (e.g. Arnaldi and Neresini 2019). Our interest is also driven by our professional roles; the authors work at TNO, an RTO in The Netherlands, and were involved in a three-year project that aimed to further develop and institutionalize RI practices and processes in this organization (see below).

In addition, we are interested in Societal Engagement (SE), one of the five thematic elements of RI. ¹ SE typically refers to the involvement of diverse societal actors in the innovation process; one can think of large and small companies, government bodies and agencies, universities and research institutes, and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs). ² The involvement of societal actors in research and innovation processes enables the organizations involved to organize a ‘transparent, interactive process by which societal actors and innovators become mutually responsive to each other with a view to the (ethical) acceptability, sustainability and societal desirability of the innovation process and its marketable products’ (von Schomberg 2013). SE promotes openness and collaboration and aims to organize and innovation both with and for society (Carrier and Gartzlaff 2019). In a similar vein, Fisher et al. (2015) discussed SE in terms of socio-technical integration and various collaborative approaches ‘that seek to broaden the societal contexts technical experts take into account during their routine activities’.

SE is similar to societal alignment, an approach put forward by Ribeiro et al. (2018) as an alternative to the social control approach to the Collingridge dilemma. This dilemma refers to the challenge of at the same time anticipating and controlling the impact of technologies: on the one hand, it is hard to anticipate a technology’s potential impacts while it is still in development; on the other hand, after a technology is developed, it is hard to control its further development and deployment. Ribeiro et al. (2018) propose that societal alignment would shift attention away from institutions that produce and regulate science, technology and innovation, and centralized, formal and regulatory roles; towards actors in the private and public sectors, and decentralized, informal and deliberative roles.

Stirling (2008) distinguished three types of motivations for SE (or ‘social appraisal’, the term he used): normative – organizing dialogues are good for reasons of democracy, equality or justice; instrumental – building trust, a positive reputation and support; and substantive – moving towards desirable goals, such as environmental quality, public health and human well-being. Moreover, SE would be especially relevant for RTOs, which have ‘public missions to support society’, according to the European Association of Research and Technology Organisations. ³

A recent meta-analysis of the ‘role of stakeholders in the context of responsible innovation’ suggested that SE is relatively underdeveloped and under-utilized (Silva et al. 2019). We see a growing need for RI in general and SE in particular, e.g. with regards to emerging technologies (e.g. nano-tech, bio-tech, info-tech and cogno-tech) (Brey 2017). Other examples can be found in the domain of Artificial Intelligence (AI) (Floridi et al. 2018). There are currently many lists of ethical principles for the development and deployment of AI (e.g. High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence 2019). ⁴ Most of these include recommendations to involve stakeholders and to take into account values, but none of them can be so specific as to recommend which stakeholders exactly to involve (and which not) and which values to prioritize (and which not). Moreover, we expect that organizations, both public and private, will be increasingly required to engage in RI and to organize SE, e.g. in the context of the European Commission’s Horizon Europe research programme, which will be ‘mission oriented’, that is, focused on solving societal problems and on engaging societal stakeholders (Mazzucato 2018).

In short, there seems to be a need to better understand SE in the context of RI. This is reflected in several contributions to the ‘International Handbook on Responsible Innovation’ which discuss SE in terms of participation and partnership (Blok 2019), the broader innovation system (Forsberg 2019), democratic engagement (Hennen and Nierling 2019) or collective experimentation (Nordmann 2019).

SE shares similarities with Quadruple Helix Collaboration (QHC) (Carayannis and Campbell 2009), which refers to collaboration between and among academia, industry, government and societal actors, and which added societal actors to the Triple Helix model of collaboration between academia, industry and government (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff 1995), in order to promote societal responsibility and to bridge the gap between innovation and civil society. SE also shares similarities with Open Innovation (OI) (Chesbrough, Vanhaverbeke, and West 2006), an approach to innovation in which organizations collaborate with, e.g. suppliers or clients during the innovation process. This is reflected in the title of a report on RRI/RI by the European Commission: ‘Open Innovation, Open Science, Open to the World: A Vision for Europe’ (European Commission 2016). Finally, SE shares similarities also with the formation and management of Innovation Eco-systems, which refers to ‘value creating interactions and relationships between sets of interconnected organizations’ (Autio and Thomas 2014, 204). What these different approaches share, is a view that innovation does not happen – or indeed, need not happen – in splendid isolation.

To read the rest of the article written by Marc Steen & Joram Nauta, follow the link below to the Original Source, Taylor & Francis Online.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23299460.2020.1813864

IEA: Ammonia will become shipping’s dominant fuel

By SalM on September 11, 2020 in News Articles

The International Energy Agency has released a new long-term energy transition forecast, drilling down into individual industrial sectors, with ammonia touted to be the long-term winner in today’s battle for shipping fuel supremacy.

The IEA’s new report, Energy Technology Perspectives 2020, suggests that in shipping, bio-fuels, ammonia and hydrogen will meet more than 80% of fuel needs in 2070 (see chart below), using around 13% of the world’s hydrogen production, with ammonia the clear leader.“These changes require further tightening of efficiency targets and low-carbon fuel standards to close the price gap with fossil fuels and de-risk investment,” the IEA report states, going to add: “The decarbonisation of these sub-sectors will require long-term planning and government support.

R&D of alternative power-trains and fuels is needed to reduce costs and improve performance, and measures to develop associated infrastructure. More than 60% of the emissions reductions in 2070 come from technologies that are not commercially available today.”

Class society DNV GL have its own fuel mix predictions through to 2050 this week in launching its Energy Transition 2020 report. The Norwegian firm reckons shipping’s fuel mix in 2050 will switch from being almost entirely oil dominated today, to a mix dominated by low- and/or zero carbon fuels (60%) and natural gas (30%, mostly LNG), supported by a host of successful, regionally imposed, decarbonisation efforts. The low-carbon fuels outlined in the DNV GL report are a mixture of ammonia, hydrogen, and other electro-fuels such as e-methanol.

Speaking at the launch of the class report on Wednesday, Andreas Sohmen-Pao, chairman of Singapore’s BW Group, one of the world’s largest shipowners, said his company is looking at methanol, biofuels and ammonia on its path towards decarbonisation.

Likewise, 11 months ago another shipping giant, Maersk, in its own bid to lead shipping towards decarbonisation, revealed it had identified three fuels to focus on, namely alcohol, biogas and ammonia.

A report published last month by Alfa Laval, Hafnia, Haldor Topsoe, Vestas and Siemens Gamesa suggested that renewable ammonia could power 30% of the global maritime fleet by 2050.

Follow the link to the original source of the article

IEA predicts ammonia will eventually become shipping’s dominant fuel

Handbook of Democratic Innovation and Governance

By SalM on September 9, 2020 in News Articles

Bibliographic References

Handbook of Democratic Innovation and Governance. Edited by Stephen Elstub and Oliver Escobar. Edward Elgar Publishing. Dec 2019.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4337/9781786433862

Summary of Content

Democratic innovations are proliferating in politics, governance, policy, and public administration. These new processes of public participation are reimagining the relationship between citizens and institutions. This Handbook advances understanding of democratic innovations, in theory and practice, by critically reviewing their importance throughout the world.

The overarching themes are a focus on citizens and their relationship to these innovations, and the resulting effects on political equality. The Handbook therefore offers a definitive overview of existing research on democratic innovations, while also setting the agenda for future research and practice

Contents

Introduction to the Handbook of Democratic Innovation and Governance: the field of democratic innovation | Oliver Escobar and Stephen Elstub (FREE ACCESS)

SECTION I – TYPES OF DEMOCRATIC INNOVATION

1. Defining and typologising democratic innovations | Stephen Elstub and Oliver Escobar (FREE ACCESS)
2. Democratic innovations and theories of democracy | Ian O’Flynn
3. Mini-publics: design choices and legitimacy | Clodagh Harris
4. Collaborative governance: between invited and invented spaces | Sonia Bussu
5. The long journey of participatory budgeting | Ernesto Ganuza and Gianpaolo Baiocchi
6. Referendums and citizens’ initiatives | Maija Jäske and Maija Setälä
7. Digital participation | Hollie Russon Gilman and Tiago Carneiro Peixoto

SECTION II – DEMOCRATIC INNOVATIONS AND THE DEMOCRATIC MALAISE

8. Does political trust matter? | Gerry Stoker and Mark Evans
9. Accountability and democratic innovations | Albert Weale
10. Anti-politics and democratic innovation | Matthew Flinders, Matthew Wood and Jack Corbett
11. The impact of democratic innovations on citizens’ efficacy | Paolo Spada

SECTION III – ACTORS IN DEMOCRATIC INNOVATION

12. Facilitators: the micropolitics of public participation and deliberation | Oliver Escobar
13. Consultants: the emerging participation industry | Laurence Bherer and Caroline W. Lee
14. Public servants in innovative democratic governance | Wieke Blijleven, Merlijn van Hulst and Frank Hendriks
15. Experts: the politics of evidence and expertise in democratic innovation | Ruth Lightbody and Jennifer J. Roberts
16. Advocates: interest groups, civil society organisations and democratic innovation | Carolyn M. Hendriks
17. The role of elected representatives in democratic innovations | Nivek Thompson
18. Journalists: the role of the media in democratic innovation | Gianfranco Pomatto

SECTION IV – DEMOCRATIC INNOVATIONS IN POLICY AND GOVERNANCE

19. Democratic innovations and the policy process | Adrian Bua
20. Democratic innovation in science and technology | Sarah R. Davies
21. Democratic innovation in social policy | Rikki Dean
22. Democratic innovation and environmental governance | Jens Newig, Edward Challies and Nicolas W. Jager
23. Democratic innovation in constitutional reform | Ron Levy
24. Democratic innovation in transnational and global governance | Mikko Rask, Bjørn Bedsted, Edward Andersson and Liisa Kallio

SECTION V – DEMOCRATIC INNOVATIONS AROUND THE WORLD

25. Democratic innovations in North America | Christopher F. Karpowitz and Chad Raphael
26. Democratic innovations in Latin America | Thamy Pogrebinschi and Melisa Ross
27. Democratic innovations in Europe | Brigitte Geissel
28. Trends in democratic innovation in Asia | Naoyuki Mikami
29. Democratic innovation in Australasia | Lucy Parry, Jane Alver and Nivek Thompson
30. Local democratic innovations in Africa | Isabel Ferreira and Giovanni Allegretti

SECTION VI – RESEARCH METHODS FOR THE STUDY OF DEMOCRATIC INNOVATIONS

31. Quantitative methods in democratic innovation research | Simon Beste and Dominik Wyss
32. Qualitative approaches to democratic innovations | Julien Talpin
33. Mixed methods research in democratic innovation | Oliver Escobar and Andrew Thompson
34. Using experiments to study democratic innovations | Kimmo Grönlund and Kaisa Herne
35. From discourse quality index to deliberative transformative moments | Maria Clara Jaramillo and Jürg Steiner
36. Analysing deliberative transformation: a multi-level approach incorporating Q methodology | Simon Niemeyer
37. Comparative approaches to the study of democratic innovation | Matt Ryan

CONCLUDING CHAPTER

38. Reflections on the theory and practice of democratic innovations | Graham Smith

Follow the link to the handbook and take a read of it:

https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/9781786433855/9781786433855.00003.xml

Link to the original article taken from the RRI Tools Website

https://www.rri-tools.eu/en/-/handbook-of-democratic-innovation-and-governance

Engagement Goes Virtual

By SalM on September 9, 2020 in News Articles

The magnitude of the Corona crisis took us all by surprise. Shops were closed down, wherever possible people had to work from home and events got cancelled or postponed. The scientific community was afflicted as well. One event affected, like many others, by the measures taken against the spread of the Coronavirus, was a Dialogue Event, that set out to take place at the Institute for Advanced Studies in May. As part of the EU project RiConfigure, the workshop aimed to foster collaboration among the public sector, industry, academia and civil society to address the challenges of our time. Faced with restrictions by the Austrian government and a partial lockdown announced in March, the organizational team had to decide: What to do?

Different options were on the table. Cancelling the event altogether was quickly discarded and the team decided to move the dialogue event from the physical to the virtual space. The workshop was reframed as weeklong virtual participatory event and postponed to the beginning of July to give enough time for planning. The main question was how to get people not only to show up (virtually), but to actively engage and interact with one another online. The following five steps were of particular relevance in achieving that goal.

How can an event be made accessible for as many people as possible?

Use different tools – but keep it simple!
One advantage of hosting a virtual event is a vast range of different tools and software that each have their specific purpose and field of application. Finding the right mix and creating the technical architecture of the event takes time and should be well thought out. For the Virtual Dialogue Days, the architecture looked like this: A slack platform was the central meeting place for all participants. Several thematic channels – and one for having a virtual coffee break –structured the space and gave it shape. Each day there was one live session held via Zoom, Mentimeter was used to make those sessions participatory. Furthermore, an Online Whiteboard, created with Miro, was used during the whole event to collect ideas and input of the participants. While all those tools and apps created a unique online environment that enabled and fostered participation, it was also important to not overwhelm attendees. Finding the fine line between creating an interesting and engaging experience while at the same time keeping it simple enough for both participants and the organizational team is key.
Create an inclusive environment
RiConfigure’s core idea is to bring together actors from the business/industry sector, the public sector, academia and civil society to imagine and deliver innovation for people and problems. Along with that goal comes the issue of inclusiveness. How can an event be made accessible for as many people as possible? For the Virtual Dialogue Days that question had several consequences. First, the event – originally planned as a one-day affair – was stretched to five days with a limited number of live events supplemented by resources that could be accessed 24/7. Furthermore, the workshop had participants mostly from Europe but also from South America. To accommodate that fact, timetables for live events were scheduled in a way that made it possible for both to participate during the day.
Preparation and testing are key
Murphy’s law is especially true if technology is involved. It is therefore essential to plan ahead of the event and train all the people involved. Everyone needs to know when to be where at what time. Especially important: Do a test run of the event with the whole organizational team involved. Online events need as much organizational staff as regular events – if not more so. That’s why it’s important that everyone’s roles are clearly defined and communicated before the event starts. Also, technical problems might be considered at all times. Both participants and organizers can face some sort of restraint in their possibility to access platforms or speak during the live sessions. The challenge was to establish structures that support all kinds of challenges and fast reaction if there was a problem.
Work towards a goal
Defining a goal that all participants work towards can help enhance engagement. Introduce that goal right at the start of the workshop and make sure to include participants along the way. At the Virtual Dialogue Days one of the pre-defined goals was co-creating a policy brief by picking up ideas and lessens at each day of the event. Besides being mentioned in the policy brief, participants had the opportunity to engage even more by contributing as a co-author.
Go with the flow
No matter how well planned your event might be, there is limited control over how participants might act and interact with your virtual structure. People might use tools in different ways than originally intended, therefore it is important to go with the flow, see how the event unfolds and adapt accordingly. If you push too much in one direction or ignore the challenges that arise, it might lead to participants just logging off the event, as leaving an online event is much easier than physically leaving offline events.

These elements made the Dialogue Days work better than could be expected at the time when the decision to go online was made. More than 80 people have been engaged in discussions about collaborative innovation across the five days and beyond. The process was inspired by the Austrian initiative Community Creates Mobility, which was a pioneer for transforming participatory events into the virtual world.

This article has been taken from the Institute of Advanced Studies in Vienna. Follow the link below to the original article

https://www.ihs.ac.at/index.php?id=1204

Systems Savvy – Key to Responsible Innovation?

By SalM on September 6, 2020 in News Articles

How can companies focus on relationships between technology and organization? What kind of skills do managers need to align technological possibilities with organizational structures? Is there a window of opportunity for Responsible Innovation?

Terri Griffith talks successful managers and future-proof companies need to have systems savvy. Terri Griffith is Professor for Innovation & Entrepreneurship at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver. She helps managers and organizations accelerate innovation and prepare for the futures of work.

“People with systems savvy understand that technologies and organizational practices are intertwined.”

My most important insights from this interview with Terri Griffith:

Successful managers need to think about complex, multi-dimensional processes.
A systems savvy approach helps them to unravel the interlinkages and trade-offs between human, technological and organizational aspects.
Moreover, this bird’s eye view saves resources upfront in the innovation process and helps to design digital technologies that are more inclusive.

The interview was taken prior to the outbreak of Covid-19. Therefore, social distancing measures were not implemented.

This article was taken from the Living Innovation website. To read the original source follow the link below

https://www.living-innovation.net/news/article?id=160&title=systems-savvy–key-to-responsible-innovation