This report describes the design and outcomes of the second stakeholder workshops organised in the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Spain.
The GoNano project is built on the assumption that several types of knowledge are needed to define sustainability, acceptability, and desirability of nanotechnologies. To test this hypothesis, GoNano explores opportunities and barriers for co-creation in different thematic areas (Health, Food and Energy), combining face-to-face citizen engagement, stakeholder workshops and online consultations.
This report is about the final stakeholder workshop organised in the pilot countries in October and November 2019. The aim the workshops was to elucidate the preconditions for co-creation, building on the insights gained in the earlier stages of the project. As can be read in the full report, the second stakeholder workshop complemented the findings from the earlier stages of the GoNano co-creation process. They point to new opportunities for enabling co-creation between different stakeholders, but also suggest new barriers.
Read the full report here D4.2B – Outcomes of co-creation workshops round 2
In summary
The three pilot partners organised a series of face-to-face citizen workshops in the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Spain in October/November 2018 (see the briefing report2 for further information on the outcomes of the citizen workshops). The second round of stakeholder workshops was organised in the pilot countries in October and November 2019. The aim the workshops was to elucidate the preconditions for co-creation, building on the insights gained in the earlier stages of the project.
Workshop design
Building on insights gained from earlier stages of the project, the second stakeholder workshop focussed on exploring how input from citizens can be productively engaged in concrete research and innovation decisions. The product suggestions derived from the first workshops (please see D4.2a – Working paper on the designs and outcomes of round 1) and subsequent input from the online consultation were used as a starting point.
Like the first workshops, the programme was structured around the four main pillars of co-creation: exploration, ideation, prototyping and reflection.
Workshop findings
In the report, three national reports on the workshop can be found which present a rich descriptions of the events themselves, the characteristics of the participants, the plenary and subgroup discussions, (implicit) group dynamics and tangible outputs (notably completed templates and the initial responses from stakeholders to the messages from citizens and the storyboards) as well as reflections on the workshop objectives (testing the main hypothesis).
Reflection on the findings
Participants highly appreciated the events in all three pilot countries and were very positive about acquiring new information, fresh ideas and new perspectives on research and innovation. Many agreed that the early consideration of societal needs and values can add value to innovation in nanotechnologies. That said, participants also expressed some doubt about the future impact of the workshops. It points to a difficulty experienced throughout the co-creation process: the difficulty of translating general insights on the relevance of societal considerations into concrete actions.
The workshop also showed how bringing stakeholders with different backgrounds together leads to relevant discussions and insights for product development and research projects. However, the GoNano project also aimed to take these insights one step further: to derive concrete product suggestions from the interactions. This proved to be quite a challenge.
Co-creation clearly can address multiple objectives: it can be used as a tool to ‘open up’ research trajectories, inviting multiple stakeholders who would normally not be included in research decision making, and exploring how their views might be more productively integrated in research and innovation trajectories. Another possible aim of co-creation is to ‘add value’ to ongoing research trajectories, by inviting feedback from specific stakeholders (prospective users for example) on particular research decisions, and seeing how this feedback might improve the research outcome (by making it more efficient, cheaper, or more acceptable, for instance). Both approaches are valid and promising. However, the GoNano experience suggests that perhaps it is too much to expect both objectives to be addressed simultaneously in the context of a European project.
Read the full report D4.2B – Outcomes of co-creation workshops round 2