Involving citizens in dialogue and participation

Involving citizens in dialogue and participation

"Given the rapid pace of societal changes induced by science, technology and innovation, citizens and their representative associations should have the opportunity to express their opinions regarding the development of research policies. In this context, various ways of involving citizens in policy making have been developed during the last thirty years in different regional or national frameworks. In order to accompany harmoniously the building up of the European Research Area, it is the Commission's intention to favour further developments in this field, at regional, national or community levels."

"The Commission has launched a study to take stock of existing experiences and lessons learned. It has favoured exchanges of views on them at a conference in Brussels (12 and 13 June 2003) on “Governance of the European Research Area: role of civil society” (PDF - size: 46kB). Read the Final report of the study (PDF - size: 579kB), the conference proceedings (PDF - size: 184kB) and a review of actions (PDF - size: 235kB) of interest at European and national levels."

I found the final report to be very helpful, clarifying many issues about knowledge.