Lombardy is the most populated region of Italy and one of the richest territories in the EU. Its economic system is mainly focused on small and medium sized enterprises and its economy is specialized in all the traditional ‘Made in Italy’ sectors but also in the new technology-dominated ones.

Lombardy Region is not new to Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), which has been officially institutionalised within the regional framework in 2016 with the Law “Lombardy is Research and Innovation”, also introducing new and strategic tools for the governance of the regional research and innovation system, namely:

 

• the Three Years’ Strategic Plan for Research, Innovation, and Technology Transfer (PST), which provides the framework for the governance of Research and Innovation at the regional level for the coming 3 years;
• the Open Innovation Platform, a virtual space where the Regional Government, industrial players, academia representatives and other societal actors can dialogue;
• the Regional Forum for Research and Innovation, an independent body composed by ten international experts on science and society related issues that was established to advise on the responsible governance of regional Research and Innovation.

Smart Specialisation Strategy – which is in close dialogue with the regional PST – is also a key instrument for the Region in order to promote specific, place-based research and innovation. The next Lombardy Region S3 is under development for the programming period 2021-2027.

Within the realm of TRANSFORM, Lombardy Region commits to render S3 more inclusive and transparent, ensuring that citizens’ voices are heard and opinions are taken into account in setting up key regional R&I vision and actions that are part of the strategy implementation. In order to do so, a citizen engagement process is developed, adopted and implemented, aiming at including public views in the next PST (2021-2023). Sharing their experiences and opinions on regional needs and priorities, Lombardy citizens are contributing to shape the regional R&I ecosystems.

A structured participatory agenda setting exercise is held entirely online (due to the COVID-19 emergency), also serving as a case study to provide concrete suggestions for the refinement of the Open Innovation platform, fostering its usability also beyond the TRANSFORM project.

Furthermore, as a joint effort of the Lombardy Cluster of TRANSFORM, Lombardy Region embeds RRI into the objectives of S3 in order to prepare the ground for citizen engagement actions in the implementation and monitoring of the strategy.

A series of internal mutual learning exercises (online meetings) among Lombardy cluster partners are conducted in order to understand and map RRI and S3 within the regional setting and to plan how to introduce RRI-‐oriented transformative changes within LR R&I policymaking.

From October 2020 onwards

Shaping the process to bring RRI into the objectives of S3 so that citizen engagement will be extensively applied in the implementation of S3 along its duration. Stakeholder raising awareness and capacity building on RRI and citizen participation have been planned to occur from now till the finalization of the S3 and beyond.

From October 2020 onwards
Capacity building activities (namely lectures and interactive workshops) on RRI and citizen engagement addressed to local stakeholders and LR General Directorates, contributing to raising awareness about citizen engagement within the regional research and innovation ecosystem.

First half of 2021
Participatory research agenda setting activities on the ground to identify and include Lombardy citizen needs in the regional PST.