TRANSFORM stands for Territories as Responsive and Accountable Networks of Smart Specialization Strategies, through new Forms of Open and Responsible Decision-Making and is our second Horizon 2020 project. This time will commit us to leading a consortium of thirteen partners: TRANSFORM will engage us for 36 months, together with the institutions of Lombardy, Catalunya and Brussels.
Involving citizens in research and innovation policies is the lowest common denominator, applying three methods: participatory research agenda setting (Lombardy), citizen science (Catalunya) and design thinking for social innovation (Brussels).

In TRANSFORM three European regions join forces and open up their R&I activities to co-create more responsible approaches to innovation. Lombardy in Italy, Brussels in Belgium and Catalonia in Spain are all leaders in experimenting new pathways for territorial development. TRANSFORM brings them together to design, test and disseminate three sound co-creation methodological frameworks (participatory research agenda setting; design for social innovation; and citizen science). These frameworks will be at the forefront of implementation of Smart Specialisation Strategy (S3). They provide approaches and application areas of responsible and accountable territorial development through new forms of local decision-making. They have also proven beneficial in aligning science, innovation and society, making R&D more responsive to citizens’ needs, concerns and aspirations. The three initiatives will implement a mutual learning process within and beyond Europe, pairing with a parallel co-design exercise in Boston (Massachusetts, US). The work in these three clusters will support and increase co-creation and participatory processes within their R&I ecosystems, both building on existing regional commitments towards transformative opportunities and strengthen the opening effect on the organisations involved. Regional governments involved in TRANSFORM will reflect on, experiment with, learn from and adopt RRI approaches to their R&I policies and actions. Concrete examples of inclusive and sustainable territorial development will be attained, thus providing a set of reliable Policy Recommendations to transforming regional R&I ecosystems towards RRI. TRANSFORM will also be integrated into Strategic Roadmaps for the implementation of RRI within S3, addressed to S3 key players, for maximum benefit across all S3 Thematic Platforms.

After twenty-five years of the Foundation’s activity, seeing the object of our mission transposed by the European Commission (confirming and further developing what has already happened in the previous SMART-map project) encourages us to achieve our statutory objective with even greater awareness: “promote the responsible exercise of innovation, both nationally and internationally, assisting institutional, private and associative subjects to direct their goals and consider it a factor of civilization for the whole of society “.

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