TeRRItoria is a 3-year project. This section will be regularly updated: resources will be published online as soon as available.

Follow us on our social media accounts or subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest updates.

 

---

The set of mapping tools was developed in the framework of the project’s Work Package 2: Setting Up, Planning and Execution of Performance Monitoring Activities. This WP is one of the two belonging to the analytical strand of TeRRItoria. It gathers all the necessary information needed for the design of the Transformative Experiments in the five participating territories of the project. It also develops guidelines and strategies for the involvement of territorial actors as well as for the elaboration of policy objectives for RRI in the respective territories, thus also providing the basis for Work Package 4: Co-design of the transformative experiments.

The mapping process

The mapping process focused on the collection and structuring of qualitative data. Quantitative examples, however, could be included as supportive evidence in the description of particular features of territorial contexts as part of the mapping process. The collection of qualitative information was focused on actors, experiences, factors, and policies. The proposed methodology is designed to be  inclusive; the mapping will seek to identify a broad range of actors and stakeholders beyond those immediately responsible for decision and policy-making, particularly those within civil society. It is also intended to be specific to each territory; as no direct comparisons will be carried out among the territories, it will be important for the mapping in each territory to support the planned Transformative Experiment.

---

The mapping process revolves around the identification of key societal milieu stakeholders and RRI-oriented or compatible practices and initiatives, as well as supporting policies, and seeks to prepare the territories for the co-design and actual implementation of the territorial experiments. The mapping exercise encompassed five activities to be implemented in each of the five experiments participating in the project: mapping the main actors present in the five territories; mapping of RRI initiatives already present in the territories selected; mapping of the “territorial factors” – social, economic, demographic and cultural risks and emerging opportunities for each of the involved territories; and mapping the main “territorial policies” developed by actors at different levels of governance (municipality, regions, national, and EU) related with the experiment to be carried out.

Approach used for the mapping process

During the mapping process the major approach employed by the research partners was desk research. The partners reviewed existing public information, websites, policy documents, as well as secondary sources. Therefore, the partners collected and structured qualitative data focused on actors, experiences, factors and policies. Throughout the mapping in the participating territories a total of 159 actors and stakeholders and 93 RRI-oriented related practices have been mapped.

Conclusions

During the design and implementation of the transformative experiments the involved territories will work on integrating more than one RRI key in their development policies. Public engagement is the most relevant RRI key for the participating territories (it will be in the focus of the transformative experiments in 4 territories), followed by science education (in 3 territories) and governance (in 3 territories). Gender equality, ethics, and open access are identified by 1 territory each.

---

The analyses were done by the five territorial organisations involved in the project on the basis of the available sources and their knowledge. The results present the analyses of the state-of-the-art based on available resources (such as S3 online platform, Regional ecosystem scoreboard and European Cluster Collaboration Platform, etc.) for each experimental region and a coherent picture of the current status of their structure, demographics, and local R&I actors has been drawn. Therefore, the current focus of research and innovation in the context of smart specialisations for each of the territories is presented. The analyses pinpoint areas of importance in the scope of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). Furthermore, the main factors contributing to the strengths and weaknesses as well as emerging opportunities and threats (a SWOT analysis) of the five R&I ecosystems and territories has been included. The performed analyses will be used to aid in the next phase of the project – starting with the design of the Transformative Experiments.

---

In order to complete its mapping of governance innovation practices in Europe and beyond, the TeRRItoria consortium compiled an inventory of 30 Bottom-Up Governance Innovation Practices (BUGIPs). The inventory focuses on governance innovations promoted by coalitions of actors that activate a process of “re-territorialisation” or processes which work to reverse de-territorialisation trends, thus leading to the fostering of local development and social cohesion. In particular, the inventory collects the experiences in which research and innovation actors exercise responsibility toward their territory in different ways while playing a pivotal role in governance innovation. The focus is on governance innovation which emerges in the territories as a “social process”, rather than as the application of a plan or a project based on top-down investments or funds, e.g. at European or at national level.

The BUGIPs listed in the inventory were analysed in detail, through a specific analysis grid which includes general information, interpretation or vision, the approach to actors’ mobilisation, activities done by the actors involved, opportunities and obstacles met by the actors involved, and the main impacts (in terms of results, new rules, new resources, consensus, sustainability, further developments, scientific production, new behaviours, etc.).

---

This is just one example of the 15 projects from Europe and beyond selected to be highlighted in Deliverable 3.2 of TeRRItoria, a task overseen by TeRRItoria consortium member SEERC. This document provides an inventory of 43 RRI Governance Innovation Practices (RRIGIPs) deriving from previous European projects with the aim of identifying innovative RRIGIPs which can provide valuable insights for designing and implementing the five transformative experiments foreseen as part of TeRRItoria.

Moving a step further from the scope of these experiments, this inventory also draws valuable conclusions that form a set of suggestions which can be employed to aid European actors in further and more genuinely facilitating an efficient RRI uptake in their organisational mechanisms. The aforementioned RRI practices were selected within a solid thematic and theoretical framework and through a thorough methodological procedure. This procedure consisted of four complementary stages through which, out of 80 initial projects, 15 projects were selected and 43 corresponding practices were placed in the inventory.  These projects and practices refer to the different RRI keys (Gender Equality, Science Education, Public Engagement, Open Access, and Ethics), as well as to the RRI-unified approach (or ‘RRI package’), where there is a comprehensive package of measures that aim to integrate RRI holistically and without an explicit focus on any specific key(s). A qualitative and reflexive thematic research approach was also employed so as to analyse the 43 practices in even more depth and detect patterns in the data collected, that is to say, in the practices promoting RRI.

After the analysis, during the fourth and final stage, a new synthesis emerged with its conclusions referring to the trends in the implementation practices of the various RRI keys. For instance, in relation to the RRI-unified approach there are both theory-oriented and practice-oriented approaches. In the former category, a usual procedure is the investigation of the current RRI situation in a specific field (conducting a literature review, examining RRI discourse) or the creation of an exemplar implementation plan or an RRI framework (e.g. the RESPONSIBLE INDUSTRY framework). In the latter case, various RRI-related experiments and action plans actually take place, resulting in new governance structures and in institutional transformations in the engaged Research-Funding and Performing Organisations (RFPOs; e.g. FIT4RRI, FOTRRIS). An additional example refers to the key of Gender Equality, where all the RFPOs aiming to achieve gender equality within their organisations develop context-based Gender Equality Plans, which are accompanied by various co-creation practices and usually result in the creation of toolkits with inspiring examples (e.g. EQUAL-IST)  or in various sets of policies and guidelines (e.g. STAGES guidelines).

Some broader conclusions after the completion of Deliverable 3.2 and of the RRIGIP inventory, are undoubtedly that RRI aims to foster reflexive societies and is always context-dependent, hence the need for developing self-tailored RRI plans and profiles based on each organisation’s structure and needs.

---

Based on an analysis of the two inventories of bottom-up governance innovation practices and RRI governance innovation practices, a Map of Approaches, Policies and Tools for Territorial RRI has been drafted.

The map begins by highlighting the core issues related to RRI: transformations of society; the “de-territorialisation” process (the loss of control over a territory and weakening of ties between a community and its territory); “territory-making” practices aimed at dealing with de-territorialisation and activating re-territorialisation (i.e. the development of new and meaningful relations among actors and between them and their territory); the territorial dynamics of the European landscape; and the possible role of “territorial RRI”, which may provide a general framework for R&I to produce knowledge supporting territory-making processes.

The Map has been developed adopting a “navigational” interpretation of mapping: it does not intend to report exhaustively all the possible measures useful for implementing a Territorial RRI program; rather, it aims at providing orientations, benchmarks and tools that can support the partners of TeRRItoria involved in the Transformative Experiments to explore and fully harness from such an approach.

---

The Working paper summarises the main information and open questions on the Territorial RRI presented and discussed at the workshop that was organised back to back with PM2 in Bologna on November 27-28, 2019.

The workshop aimed to share a preliminary understanding of what Territorial RRI is (based on the mapping work done in TeRRItoria WPs 2 and 3) within the consortium and to reflect on how RRI can be adapted to a territorial context, to have a common understanding for the design (WP4), the implementation (WP5) and the evaluation (WP6) of the 5 Transformative Experiments.

This overall aim has been addressed by pursuing a set of specific objectives:

1. Sharing and fine-tuning a preliminary interpretation of Territorial RRI;
2. Identifying synergies and differences between Territorial RRI and the R&I ecosystems in the territories;
3. Reflecting and adjusting the 5 Territorial RRI experiments.

The workshop completed its scope while leveraging on the results of the mapping exercise carried out in WP2 “Mapping the Territorial R&I Ecosystems” and WP3 “Mapping governance innovation practices”. The information mapped has been used in the workshop as the basis for discussion, as it represents a common ground for a shared vision of what Territorial RRI is and what it’s meant for.

Territorial RRI can be understood here as the “response-ability” (i.e. the ability to respond to others and with others) of R&I actors to the challenges of de/re-territorialisation. Through Territorial RRI, R&I actors take part – they as territorial actors and together with others – to territory-making, that is an ongoing and open-ended process of establishing and cultivating a new transformative relationship for territorial governance. As this process is a social and technological innovation, territorial RRI is a key element of the process as it allows access to research, science and technology.

Some open questions and remarks presented at the workshop are reported here as a support tool, among others, to design the 5 Transformative Experiments or similar activities.

---

The evaluation scheme outlines the approach to evaluating the five Transformative Experiments (TEs) to be carried out within the framework of TeRRItoria. By bringing together a wide range of stakeholders in the development and implementation of five different TEs in four regions and one municipality, the project intends to address and mitigate territorial R&I challenges through the advancement of “Territorial RRI”.

Overall, the internal evaluation of activities is designed to assess the implementation of TE actions/initiatives and their impacts produced throughout the project and to use this knowledge to ensure long-term sustainability of the experimental activities commenced. The evaluation task comprises two distinct types of evaluation:

1. A process evaluation (formative evaluation, inspired by the deliberative democratic evaluation perspective), which is an ongoing evaluation for internal learning throughout the project.
2. An impact assessment (summative evaluation, application of “theory-based evaluation”), which takes place towards the end of the project.

The evaluation scheme outlines a proposal for securing and collecting the data needed for analysis in the two evaluation tasks.  The report also includes a set of preliminary indicators intended for inspiration in the co-creation process of determining context-specific success criteria and strategic priorities.