Key conclusions from Quadruple Helix Workshop in Brussels On 19 October 2016, hosted by the Slovak Liaison Office for Research and Development Brussels, DANDELION organised a Quadruple Helix Workshop, to offer a discussion forum where relevant key players addressed crucial topics of supply and demand for SSH research. The topics addressed during the workshop were:
- Innovation in SSH research and key socio-economic challenges;
- Communication gaps and interaction barriers among stakeholders;
- Valorisation framework of IIRS projects to ensure societal impact.
26 Selected members of the DANDELION Advisory Board representing Policymakers/Public Authorities, Academia/Research, Civil Society/NGOs, Business/SMEs participated to the workshop. The discussion has been very proactive and intense, generating a number of interesting outcomes.
To summarize, accordingly to the participants, to be innovative, SSH research needs to have an impact in the society and generate measurable outcomes.
The workshop emphasize that three elements are fundamental to reach innovation and impact in SSH research:
- Early and active engagement of stakeholders in the co-design of the requirements, solutions and processes. This will ensure that all the perspectives are taken into consideration and the outcomes are tailored to the stakeholders’ needs, useful and effective, personalized, acceptable, non-obtrusive, cost-effective, sustainable and exploitable.
- Providing Knowledge to the stakeholders that is Actionable in their work. Stakeholders are “hungry” for research results that can be implemented in real life. But often, research results are not available in a format tailored to the users’ needs, or are presented in an incomprehensible way (e.g. too technical or scientific language), hampering the valorisation of research results. The researchers should analyse and focus on the stakeholders’ specific needs and deliver the research results in a way that is exploitable by the stakeholders in their work and practice. Special attention should be given to the development of applicable Policy Recommendations.
- Definition of Solid strategies for (i) Impact, Communication and Dissemination and (ii) Exploitation, Valorisation and Sustainability, designed and implemented from the very early stages of the project.
Watch the event video here.
