About InSPIRES

InSPIRES brings together Civil Society, practitioners and other stakeholders from across and beyond Europe to co-design, jointly pilot, implement and roll out innovative models for Science Shops. The InSPIRES models integrate Responsible Research and Innovation, Open Science and Impact Evaluation as part of their DNA in order to open the research process up in a more strategic way. The inputs from systematic impact evaluation studies will be continuously integrated in order to make InSPIRES Science Shops 2.0 models more accurate and responsive to civil society needs and concerns.

Concentrating most of its efforts on Research & Innovation in the health and environmental sectors, giving special attention to gender parity and vulnerable groups (women, the elderly, adolescents, migrants and refugees), InSPIRES brings Science Cafés and other public engagement initiatives into its models together with a “glocal” international focus, for more inclusive, context relevant and culturally adapted community-based participatory research and innovation.

Building on a comprehensive communication plan, with a strong effort dedicated to the development and implementation of a sustainability strategy, InSPIRES outcomes will:

• give evidence and support political bodies and decision-makers, in order to propose changes in local, regional, national and international policies;
• nurture the debate about the place and role of society in science, encouraging the systematic and ethical involvement of civil society actors and their societal concerns in the research and innovation processes, and
• support the development of new Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and Open Science (OSc) strategies and guidelines, in the context of safe spaces to involve and engage civil society in the whole science process.

The main goal of the 4-year InSPIRES project is to build effective cooperation between science and society by supporting the growth of Science Shops and enabling the expansion of responsible participatory research and innovation in Europe and abroad, in order to tackle key societal challenges that affect the world population.

In order to achieve this main aim, the project proposes the following objectives:

Objective 1: To co-create, and jointly pilot, refine and implement a set of innovative Science Shop 2.0 models aligned with RRI, OSc and impact evaluation requirements and that are more culturally, health and environment sectors adapted, with a focus on innovative and participatory techniques for systematically engaging civil society and other key RRI stakeholders in research and innovation.

Objective 2: To establish new Science Shop structures and strengthen existing Science Shops within and beyond Europe’s borders through a training and mutual learning programme around the models and tools developed.

Objective 3: To contribute to the European debate on the interaction between science and society for research and innovation, through comparative impact assessment of the InSPIRES initiatives and comprehensive reviews of existing good practices.

Objective 4: To widely disseminate these models and to promote international strategic alliances through the implementation of Transdisciplinary and Transnational SS projects, the establishment of Spanish and Italian networks of SS and through policy impact.

Video ISGLobal

The Office of Citizen Science of Barcelona brings together groups from the metropolitan area which have projects and which are interested in sharing experiences and methodologies in this area.