The University of Bergen, leading the work package on Monitoring and Evaluation, has been engaged in continuous monitoring and evaluation, analysing a number of documents from meeting minutes and cluster progress reports to TRANSFORM deliverables. In addition, at the end of the second year, they conducted evaluative conversations – semi-structured active interviews with cluster partners about the project partners’ experiences and about the organisational-institutional settings in which they are working. The findings fed into the Second Interim Monitoring Report available. Do you want a sneak peek of the preliminary findings? Then keep reading…
The evaluation approach used in the Second Interim Monitoring Report combines the notions of double loop learning for the project formation processes with the concept of translation and ecologies of participation. Double-loop learning can be defined as learning that involves the questioning and revision of elements of one’s own world-view. This can happen gradually or also take place at crucial moments. A focus on translations of RRI within broader ecologies of participation allows for moving beyond the assessment of individual engagement activities as “good” or “bad” and scoring, scaling or ranking them, and enables us to assess how techniques or methodologies of engagement shift and change when they are applied in a particular regional or territorial setting.
The TRANSFORM Second Interim Monitoring Report highlighted the diversity of the RRI types that are being implemented in the different clusters.
The Lombardy cluster largely relies on longstanding collaborations with partners from the administrative sector of the region. Its objective is to test and eventually stabilise RRI methods such as participatory agenda setting and citizen assemblies as more permanent tools of R&I governance.
The Catalonia cluster centers around citizen science pilots in waste collection management and endometriosis. Much like the Lombardy cluster, this one coordinates with regional authorities, and is predicated on pre-existing networks while still contributing to new transversal relations among government entities and their approaches.
Finally, the Brussels cluster illustrates the variety of RRI translations. It has engaged in a pilot aiming at transformations in the regional R&I system and academia, as well as in other pilots focused on bottom-up citizen science and participatory urban development.
Two years on, there is strong evidence of synergetic interaction between pilots and the development of S3/RIS3 strategic work. TRANSFORM RRI pilots contribute to RIS3 development at public administration level; however, it is also true that public administrations develop RIS3 through the TRANSFORM pilots. Moreover, it can already be observed that TRANSFORM has affected democratic RRI benefits, which can be identified in the Lombardy cluster’s contribution to deliberative methodologies, together with the Catalonia cluster’s contributions to transversal communication and collaboration in the quadruple helix.
Stay tuned for the full report.
This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 872687. This website reflects only the authors' view and the REA and the EC are not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.