Guidelines for CSO participation in research

[Bernd Stahl]

The CONSIDER project, as part of the Science in Society aspect of FP7, undertakes research that will affect policy and further European goals. It is therefore of central importance that the research findings formulated and synthesised in WPs 1 (Civil Society Organisation Participation in Research Governance), WP2 (The practice of CSO participation) and WP 3 (Model of CSO participation) are translated into manageable and applicable recommendations and guidelines that allow stakeholders to improve their processes of engaging CSOs in research. This requires the development of simple to use ICT tools to guide users through recommendations and findings.

 Work package 4 will ensure that the research is conducted with a view to this aim. It will translate research results into guidelines and ICT tools in collaboration with the most important stakeholders and assess the usefulness and ease of use of the resulting guidelines with a view to optimising the wider uptake of project results.

 CONSIDER research needs to be conducted in a way that will render it amenable to practical policy recommendations. It is therefore important that this requirement of practical relevance is injected across the CONSIDER project early in the research phase. The development of guidelines will involve a large number of Associates, some of whom will be policy stakeholders.

 The CONSIDER Associates will be organised through a virtual Network of Associates. Participation in this network is open to any interested organisations and individuals. Benefits of joining the network are listed here. To sign up, get on the email list, be included in the list of Associates and gain access to further information, please click here.

 Such involvement has already happened with the first CSO workshop on the 20th of June 2012 in Porto, Portugal following an earlier event involving other stakeholders at the Living Knowledge Conference in Bonn in May 2012. WP4 will be using CSO input through workshops, EU Presidency events and other stakeholder engagement.