One of the main objective of our Alliance is to foster genuine engagement of civil society actors (e.g., citizens, civil society organizations, communities, municipalities) in ENLIGHT research and innovation activities from setting research agendas to executing the research, analyzing, and interpreting findings, discussing follow-up and creating impact, thus co-creating knowledge.
Our public engagement experts are working on an inclusive and integrated cooperation approach to help accelerate the institutional change of all partners by building a mutual learning platform. This includes:
- Site visits, presentations to various target groups/stakeholders
- Training sessions (on location/online); webinars
- Executing pilot projects by partners
- Support (supplying materials and tools; responding to questions)
- Survey/Focus Group(s) with stakeholders for evaluation and learning
- Publications/Presentations/Workshops for dissemination
Subsequently, we should promote local action plans to institutionalize activities within ENLIGHT partners and to set up connections for researching the same topic in parallel or jointly, to learn and compare, and to exchange approaches and findings. This ties in with the ENLIGHT plans to connect students to co-operate on problems defined by civil society in transdisciplinary settings and expands the idea towards joint research and innovation activities.
Finally, all our activities should lead towards establishing an action plan to sustain ENLIGHT joint engagement activities with civil society in R&I, by initiating collaboration in larger projects, e.g., larger citizen science projects, by identifying and applying for joint funding.