Executive summary

• Author: Delaney, Niamh; Tornasi, Zeno; Warin, Colombe
• Pages: 4-5

4

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education an d Youth

“Interaction between citizens, scientists and policy makers is essential to enrich research

and innovation, and reinforce trust of society in science. I am proud of the hundreds of

thousands empowered citizens that already contributed to research and innovation in

recent years and look forward to continue op ening up research towards society and the

world.”

Research and innovation ar e essential to finding solutions to the pres sing challenges we

face. It requires opening up the research and innovation system to the participation and

collective i ntelligence of society, embedding high integrit y and ethics standards, raising

interest in sci ence, and supporting Europe’s brightest minds engage in scientific careers.

Put simply, Europe cannot thri ve without ensuring the best possible match between the

immense potential achievements science has to offer and the needs, values and

aspirations of citizens.

The objective of this report is to convey the achievements of the citizen science and

citizen engagement projects funded under the Science with an d for Society (hereinafter

referred to as SwafS) part of Horizon 2020. Its purpose is to serve as input for the

preparation of the Horizon Europe programme implementation.

Overview of SwafS Implementation in Horizon 2020

A budget of EUR 462 million was earmarked f or SwafS in Horizon 202 0. Close to 2,000

proposals submitted in response to the annual calls for proposals, conveys strong

interest in SwafS matters.

The annual evaluations are deemed to be highly robust. So far, they resulted in 150

funded projects and close to 50 m ore projects are expe cted to stem from the final call s

under Horizon 2020. Since the start of this Fram ework Programme, REA Unit B.5

manages the projects. SwafS projects are typically comp osed of large consortia wi th an

average of 11 partners and tend to run for around 3 years.

Citizen science and citizen engagement

In 20 15, former Commissioner Moedas identified three strategic priorities, described in

Open innovation, Open science, Open to the world (the th ree O’s strategy). One

important dimension of open science is citizen science and in 2016, the Council1

recognised citizen science as an open science priority. Citizen science can make science

more socially relevant, accelerate and enable production of new scientific knowledge,

increase public awareness about science and ownership of policy making, as well as

increase the prevalence of evidence-based policy making.2

The 22 projects funded under th is part of the SwafS portfol io are categorised as

‘deepening the evidenc e base, practice and training on co-design and co-creation’ (6

projects) and ‘doing citizen science’ (16 projects). In terms of the former, projects

produced a range of resources including practi cal guidance on runn ing co-design and co-

creation activities, representing the state-of-the-art in the field. Moreover, several

projects developed sustainable network s. Notably, the EU-Ci tizen.Science Platform will

serve as a reposit ory for citizen sci ence resources and becom e a pan-European hub. The

‘doing citizen science’ p roject portfolio reached an impressive n umber of citizens, often

1 Council conclusions on the trans ition towards an Open Science system, adopted by the Council at its 3470th meeting held on

27 May 2016

2 SwafS work programme 2018-2020