Loading...

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.

Lombardy regional cluster

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.

Catalonia

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.

Brussels-Capital

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.

The existence of such synergetic relationships might be an important condition for success and we will return to this issue in the final report. In terms of the various aspects of RRI, TRANSFORM casts light upon RRI achievements within the domains that MoRRI indicators GOV2 and PEx (including PE2, PE5, PE7 and PE10) were intended to measure.

Stay tuned for the full report.


Screenshot-2022-05-05-at-09.42.46-e1651738912664-1200x483.png

5- 6 May

Vienna, Austria 

REvaluation 2021 – Anticipation – Transition – Resilience

In the last couple of years, European science and innovation systems have been challenged by at least two major developments. First, R&I funding is increasingly designed with a view to supporting societal missions or system transformations. Second, COVID-19 has demonstrated the importance of resilience of science and innovation systems and has questioned hitherto long held views of openness and division of labour in the development of knowledge and innovation.  

This year’s edition of European’s largest R&I policy evaluation conference will respond to those challenges. While primarily asking for conceptual and methodological advances in the field of R&I policy evaluation in its broadest sense, a strong focus this year will be to share and discuss conceptual approaches and experiences to assess and measure the relevance and effectiveness of new R&I policy responses which aim to contribute to transformation and resilience. This is especially important – and challenging – as such R&I policies are mostly still at experimental stage.

There is thus great uncertainty about which R&I interventions will work how and which rebound effects they may trigger. A clear instrumental toolbox is currently not in sight. These developments also challenge the field of evaluation: new policy questions require new evaluative approaches, new methods and new indicators, for which data are often very difficult to collect.

Evaluative conversations: translating between diverse stakeholders in regional RRI projects 

The University of Bergen, the lead partner of the work package on Monitoring and Evaluation within TRANSFORM, has contributed to the abstract prepared jointly by SwafS-14 projects on territorial RRI – issues, tensions and lessons learned in monitoring and evaluation practices of nine H2020 projects. Presented by Tjitske Holtrop and Anestis Amanatidis of CWTS Leiden, the talk “Evaluative conversations: translating between diverse stakeholders in regional RRI projects”  will take place on 5 May from 10:30 to 12:00 within the session on Regional Innovation.  

The REvaluation 2021 Conference is jointly organised by Fraunhofer ISI, IFRIS and the Austrian Platform for Research and Technology Policy Evaluation.

 


EU flag 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.
Project Coordinator: Angela Simone Fondazione Giannino Bassetti angela.simone@fondazionebassetti.org
 
contact: info@transform-project.eu