The project “Public Participation in Developing a Common Framework for Assessment and Management of Sustainable Innovation” (CASI) is proposed as a response to one of the Grand Challenges set out in the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Union, namely “Climate action, environment resource efficiency and raw materials”.
It represents an EU-wide cross-sectoral partnership on innovation-related challenges and considers not only the impacts of social and technological innovation, but also the types of actors involved and their inherent interests. It thus effectively integrates the perspectives of civil society, SMEs, industry, policy stakeholders, and leading academics.
This collaboration investigates the scope of sustainable innovation as a societal phenomenon and enables the elaboration of an assessment framework of sustainable innovation practices, whose application can be successfully integrated into public policy developments.
Objectives:
In accordance with the objectives of the call, the project’s main objective will be to develop a methodological framework for assessing and managing sustainable innovation through wider public engagement in the RTDI system by ensuring the commitment of a broad spectrum of societal stakeholders, including industry, research organisations, policy-makers, academia and science institutes, civil society organisations, media and the general public.
In achievement of the overall objective of the proposed action, the specific objectives include:
Specific Objective 1: Development of a working definition of sustainable innovation, building on the most common definitions, academic literature as well as expert advice internal and external to the project consortium;
Specific Objective 2: The inclusion of general public concerns in assessing the social impact of this kind of innovation on society in consultation workshops. Issues such as participation in the development of innovation, inclusiveness, ethics, gender and open access will be considered in these sessions.
Specific Objective 3: Development of a common understanding of best practices in sustainable innovation management;
Specific Objective 4: Development of a framework for assessment and management of sustainable innovation.
Specific Objective 5: Development of specific policy recommendations on how to improve innovation management and how sustainability considerations can be incorporated into it based on the findings of the assessment framework and public consultations.
