RRI Tools

We live in a world where it is now more important than ever to find concrete solutions to pressing health and environmental challenges. Every day, we see science and innovation rising up to these global challenges, yet it is still not enough to solve the serious problems that we face. This complexity needs to be addressed by multiple stakeholders involved in research and innovation, including citizens. If we zoom in on environmental challenges, Europe is on a mission to deliver 100 climate-neutral cities by 2030. Reaching this objective in less than ten years will only be possible if quadruple helix stakeholders are involved (science, policy, industry and society). The only way to find workable solutions to achieve climate-neutrality, which are accepted and taken up at scale, is through the active participation of all concerned.

MOSAIC aims to study, prove and assess how such solutions can be made possible and be enhanced by a shift from triple to quadruple helix models, i.e. models that also involve citizens. The overall aim of MOSAIC is therefore to understand how the full role of citizens in co-innovation can be met and fairly rewarded.

MOSAIC will capitalise on the wide range, and sometimes disparate, experiences of co-creation, emerging from both the Science with and for Society (SwafS), the DG RTD funding programme within Horizon 2020, as well as other firm-centric and city-relevant co-creation activities. It will identify and classify elements of best co-creation practices to engage all parts of the quadruple helix in open innovation, paying particular attention to the involvement of the private sector (business and industry). MOSAIC will work to transform this into a collection of elements suitable for mission-oriented open innovation settings. To do so, it will perform an analysis of relevant experiences towards open innovation, which will be translated into approaches targeted for the mission approach.   

Pilot actions in the cities of Brussels and Milan will test MOSAIC’s methodological approach and research actions throughout the project. The piloting process will produce concrete instruments and recommendations, to be replicated in further European cities and regions willing to engage in mission-oriented approaches via quadruple helix collaboration but also to enrich the work of Horizon Europe researchers and stakeholders more broadly.

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• The 1st MOSAIC paper 'RRI legacies: co-creation for responsible, equitable and fair innovation in Horizon Europe" (published at the Journal of Responsible Innovation) - The paper discusses the 'new policy experiment' of Missions and Open Innovation and argues that co-creation can act as a linking-pin between the open science emphasis of Horizon 2020 and the open innovation accent of Horizon Europe.