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Welcome to CONSIDER

CONSIDER stands for Civil Society Organisations in Designing Research Governance.

On the 28th of January 2015, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and the CONSIDER project (Civil Society Organisations in Designing Research Governance) jointly hosted the conference "Civil Society in Research and Innovation" in Brussels. The event opened with a video message by the Commissioner, Carlos Moedas, where he addressed that CSO in Research and Innovation is not only a very important topic for him, but highly-relevant for the priorities of his mandate as a Commissioner:

An edited video of some of the highlights of the CONSIDER project is available here:

Clic here to to read the Press Release of the event.

Brief overview of the main activities and outcomes of the CONSIDER project

From February 2012 to January 2015, CONSIDER undertook conceptually sound and empirically rich research regarding CSO participation in research. A series of guidelines were obtained by contrasting theoretical views on benefits and limitations with empirical findings on the practice of CSO participation. Based on a grid of analysis, the project did a survey of all FP7 research projects, and investigated more than 30 relevant projects as in-depth case studies. Using the conceptual grid of analysis and empirical data, a model of CSO participation in research was developed. The aim of the project is that this model, representing relationships and causal effects of factors influencing CSO participation, will allow for comparative analysis to determine the role CSOs play in achieving participation objectives.

Broader stakeholder engagement in technical and scientific research is desirable for a variety of reasons. Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) can be optimal actors to realise the promise of participative research governance. Despite much activity to stimulate and implement CSO participation in research, there is no agreement on how to evaluate the success of participation.

Findings lead towards the development of specific guidelines for relevant stakeholders. This way, CONSIDER will greatly contribute to the further development of the European Research Area.

The following video provides an introduction to the project by various consortium members: