Content uploaded by Bruno J Strasser
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Bruno J Strasser on Jun 24, 2020
Content may be subject to copyright.
Vol.:(0123456789)
Minerva
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-020-09405-6
1 3
From Deliberation toProduction: Public Participation
inScience andTechnology Policies oftheEuropean
Commission (1998–2019)
HadrienMacq1 · ÉliseTancoigne2· BrunoJ.Strasser2
© Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract This article investigates how a discourse about the role and value of
public participation in science, technology, and innovation emerged and evolved in
the research policies of the European Commission. At the beginning of the twenty-
first century, two main discourses have been successively institutionalized: the first
focused on participation in policy-making, while the second aimed at participation
in the production of knowledge and innovation. This paper distinguishes three main
institutional phases: (i) a phase dedicated to public participation in the governance
of science and technology (2000–2010); (ii) a reframing period of science and tech-
nology policies by the Commission to integrate the growing emphasis on innova-
tion (2010–2014); (iii) a period focusing on co-creation and citizen science as new
ways to involve the public in science and technology (2014-today). Factors such as
individual commitments of key policy actors, specific epistemic communities and
institutional dynamics within the Commission played a crucial role in shaping the
policies of participation. But broader factors are also essential to account for these
changes. In this respect, the economic crisis of the late 2000s appears fundamental
to understanding how the conception and promotion of public participation in the
European science and technology policies have evolved over time. This paper thus
offers new insights to the analysis of the political economy of public participation.
Keywords Public participation· European Commission· Research and
innovation· Open innovation· Citizen science
* Hadrien Macq
hadrien.macq@uliege.be
1 Université de Liège, Place des Orateurs, 3, 4000Liège, Belgium
2 Université de Genève, Uni Carl Vogt, 1211Geneva4, Switzerland
H.Macq et al.
1 3
Introduction
The participation of different publics in science and technology-related issues is
a key theme in Science and Technology Studies (STS). Multiple scholars in STS
have shown that lay people can meaningfully engage in discussions and delibera-
tions about science and technology (Irwin and Wynne 1996) and contribute to mak-
ing democracies stronger by contributing to civic debates about controversial issues
resulting from scientific and technological developments (Callon etal. 2009).
In policy circles, public participation (often under the heading of “public dia-
logue” or “public engagement”) has been conceived as a powerful remedy to
the perceived decreasing legitimacy of governing institutions since the 1990s
resulting from techno-scientific controversies such as the “mad cow disease,” the
dioxin affair, and genetically modified organisms. Public participation was often
understood by public authorities, at the national and European levels, as a way
to reduce opposition to technological change by achieving a broad social con-
sensus (Irwin 2006). Political authorities progressively acknowledged the need
for reform in governing science and technology by including various participa-
tory mechanisms, resulting in what STS scholars have described as a “partici-
patory turn” (Jasanoff 2003). In Europe in particular, these reforms have led to
the creation of new deliberative forums on science and technology-related issues,
involving and engaging stakeholders as well as members of the wider public
(Grove-White etal. 2000), in line with the more general turn towards participa-
tory mechanisms in European institutions (Saurugger 2010).
Research on participation in science and technology has mainly focused on these
deliberative kinds of public participation, stressing connections between the forms
of these participatory arrangements, the issues that are discussed, and the publics
that are constructed through participatory procedures (Irwin 2001; Wynne 2006;
Lezaun and Soneryd 2007; Marres 2007; Chilvers and Longhurst 2016). Part of the
literature also reflect critically on the role played by scholars in the humanities and
the social sciences as experts in constructing and promoting participation in science
and technology policies (Felt 2010; Fisher 2011; Joly 2015; Aguiton 2018).
However, other forms of public participation are also emerging, around con-
cepts such as “creative economy,” “open collaborative innovation,” “open sci-
ence,” “living labs” or “citizen science” (Chilvers and Kearnes 2016; Lezaun
etal. 2016). Although attached to different disciplines and produced in different
contexts, all these concepts invoke participation not as a deliberative process, but
also as a productive one, geared towards the production of innovation, technol-
ogy, and scientific knowledge.
As some authors have argued, the literature lacks empirical analysis of the
actual processes through which policies of public participation are crafted as well
as of the broader political contexts which give these practices their meanings (Felt
and Fochler 2010; Joly 2015; Delvenne and Macq 2019). Burgess and Chilvers
(2006) point to the “fundamental influence of the wider context of science and
technology governance, whether it be institutional, political, cultural, scientific,
environmental, and so on, in (…) shaping engagement processes.” Tyfield (2012)
1 3
From Deliberation toProduction
also criticized the STS literature for its lack of attention to the political and eco-
nomic context of science, innovation and public participation – echoing a similar
point by Thorpe (2010) about the missing analysis of the “political dimension of
science policy.” In line with this research agenda, the second main aim of this
paper is to provide insights about the political economy of public participation in
science and technology by unpacking the institutional arrangements that produce
different policy discourses.
Our study is based on the science and technology policies of the European Com-
mission (EC). The emergence of a policy discourse about the value of public partici-
pation in general has been particularly striking at the European Union level since the
beginning of the 1990s. At that time, the participation of “civil society” in decision-
making processes came to be viewed as increasingly necessary (Saurugger 2010) for
the good “governance” of European institutions. This new discourse also emerged in
the domain of science and technology policy, leading to the production and promo-
tion of various participatory mechanisms (Felt and Wynne 2007; Felt 2010; Anichini
and de Cheveigné 2012). By the early 2000s, a number of participatory experiments,
which took place in different member states, were systematized at the level of the
European Union (Abels 2007). Specifically, the EC was the first and main institution
at the EU level engaged in the promotion of participatory democracy, especially in
the field of science and technology (Aldrin and Hubé 2016). It has been particularly
creative in coining new labels to designate its participatory ideals, such as “Respon-
sible Research and Innovation” (Tancoigne etal. forthcoming) or adopting others,
such as “Science 2.0” or “Open Science” (EC 2015).
The existing literature offers many insights on the effects of EU policies towards
public participation in science and technology,1 but little on the emergence and evo-
lution of the discourse itself. When it takes into account the historicity of participa-
tion (Ryan 2015), it remains narrowly focused on the science policy discourse itself,
without broadening the perspective to other fields of policy that could explain its
emergence and historical transformations (see, however, Felt 2010). In other words,
this literature does not really “open the black box of the European Commission”
(Edler etal. 2003), nor does it provide an in-depth analysis of the ways in which
public participation in science has been put on the agenda of the EC and how it has
evolved through time. Informed by an analysis both of the discourses and of the
actors and institutions that produced them, we trace the emergence and evolution of
the discourse on public participation in science and technology at the EC2, and offer
an interpretation of the processes that drove these changes.
1 Initiatives aiming at including different publics in science and technology-related issues have been
labeled in a number of different ways (e.g. public participation, public involvement, public dialogue, or
public engagement). As our goal in this paper is to account for different forms of initiatives, including
different publics in the pursuing of different goals, we deliberately choose to use ‘public participation’
as a generic term which, conceived in a broad sense, allows to report for different types of participa-
tions. This decision is consistent with the proposition made by Chilvers and Kearnes (2016) to broaden
our understanding of ‘public participation’ to account for other types of procedures than the ‘traditional’
deliberative ones.
2 We chose to focus on the European Commission and its Directorate General for research as our objec-
tive is to analyze European policies. Other institutions, such as the European Research Council and the
European Institute of Innovation and Technology have been left out of the analysis as they do not engage
formally, as institutions, in the fabric of the European research and innovation policies.
H.Macq et al.
1 3
Science andTechnology Policies attheEuropean Union Level
With the exception of the strategic EURATOM treaty of 1958, research and tech-
nology policy has been a relatively minor component of EU policies until the early
1980s (Guzzetti 1995). In a context of exacerbated competition with the United
States after the end of the Cold War, the European Union’s Research and Techno-
logical Development (RTD) policy became implemented by specific research pro-
grammes: the multiannual Framework Programmes for Research and Technologi-
cal Development (FP). The first Framework Programme (FP1, 1984–1987) aimed at
targeting and coordinating the efforts of the European scientific community through
a dedicated budget and various funding tools. This budget kept increasing over
time, from FP1 to FP7 (2007–2013) and H2020 (2014-today): starting at 1.3B€/
year (FP1), it reached 10B€/year for H2020, which, corrected for inflation, amounts
to a 700% increase in budget. The Framework Programme then became the main
research policy tool of the EC.
Within the Commission, the Directorate-General for Research (and Innovation,
after 2010) has been in charge of the drafting of the Framework Programmes. The
Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (DG RI), like the other DGs, is
headed by a director-general and divided into units directed by heads of units. These
heads of units constitute the organizational backbone of the Commission and rep-
resent the main locus where the policies are crafted. The person acting as a head
of unit usually possesses most policy expertise and articulates the policies of the
units with the larger policy objectives of the EU (Bauer 2008). The fact that the
Framework Programmes have to be renegotiated between the EC, Member States
(through the Council), and the Parliament every five years generates rich discourses
where the objectives and implementation of research policies are debated and often
redefined. Furthermore, every year, within the Framework Programmes, new Work
Programmes (WPs) are being defined, which operationalize the general policies of
the Framework Programmes. These discourses offer a rich material to analyze the
emergence of the issue of public participation in science and technology and its
transformations over time.
The research presented in this paper is based on a wide range of sources: docu-
ments of the Framework Programmes from FP5 (1998–2002) to H2020 (2014–2020)
and their Specific Programmes and Work Programmes dedicated to science and soci-
ety issues, expert reports from the dedicated FP6 Science and Society (SaS) and FP7
Science in Society (SiS) Programmes, descriptions of the 65,908 research projects
funded by the EC from 1999 to June 2017 through the Framework Programmes,
organizational charts of the administrative apparatus of the EC since 2003, and a set
of semi-structured interviews with nine former Heads of Units and key policy offic-
ers of the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (April 2015 and May
2016). The coding and lexical analysis methods of the documents are presented in
Box1.
Policies about participation in science and technology underwent three main
phases. The initial phase is characterized by the development of a discourse on
participation framed as deliberation for science and technology policymaking
1 3
From Deliberation toProduction
(2000–2010). The second phase is a transitional phase, integrating the growing
emphasis on innovation (2010–2014). The third sees the emergence of a discourse
on participation in production of knowledge and innovation (2014-today).
This article combines an analysis of internal and contextual factors to explain
these discursive shifts. Institutional entrepreneurs, epistemic communities and a
crisis of legitimacy are key factors explaining the emergence of the first discourse.
Hierarchical dynamics within the institutions, as well as the economic crisis, are
essential factors explaining the emergence of the second discourse.
Box1 Making sense ofthestrategic documents andprojects
throughhypothesis coding andlexical analysis
The literature identifies four distinct dimensions of public participation in sci-
ence and technology: the what (what issues are the objects of participation), the
who (identity of the involved publics), the how (procedural formats), and the why
(reasons motivating participation) of participation (Fiorino 1989; Marres 2007;
Stirling 2008; Felt and Fochler 2010; Chilvers and Longhurst 2016). These four
dimensions were used to carry out hypothesis coding (Saldaña 2012) on the EC
strategic R&D policy documents and the experts’ reports, in order to analyze the
emergence of the issue of public participation in science and technology and its
transformations over time. Hypothesis coding is the application of a researcher-
generated, predetermined list onto qualitative data to assess a researcher-gener-
ated hypothesis. Here we looked how the what, the who, the how and the why of
public participation were framed in those documents. Two distinct discourses on
public participation emerge from this analysis: public participation as delibera-
tion and public participation as production.
A lexical extractiona performed on the “objectives” field of the research pro-
jects funded within the Science and Society (SaS), Science in Society (SiS)
and Science with and for Society (SwafS) programmes (n = 420) also revealed
two groups of terms related to public participation: 1/ a group of terms refer-
ring to deliberative public engagement in policy making (‘democratic debate,’
‘dialogue,’ ‘consultation,’ ‘deliberative process’); 2/ a group of terms referring
to participation in research and innovation making (‘user innovation,’ ‘user-inno-
vation,’ ‘participatory research,’ ‘participatory innovation,’ ‘citizen science,’ ‘co-
creation’). We expanded this coding to all the “objectives” field of the research
projects funded by the EC from 1999 to 2017 through FP5, FP6, FP7 and H2020.
aWe used the software Cortext Manager (https ://manag erv2.corte xt.net/)
H.Macq et al.
1 3
Public Participation asDeliberation
Until the late 1990s, none of the FPs mentioned “public participation” in sci-
ence and technology. The general public was not the intended audience of these
programmes, which focused mainly on the benefits of science for the economy
through knowledge transfer towards the private sector (European Economic Com-
munity 1987). It was in the FP4 (1994–1998) that “the public” entered the dis-
course on research policy, but not yet as an active “participant,” only as “passive”
citizens in need of education. As the EU put it in 1994, “The latest developments
in the Community […] indicate an increasing need for public understanding of
science and for strengthening the interface between science, research and soci-
ety” (European Community 1994). This vision was implemented in the 5th FP
(1998–2002) which included a programme devoted to helping the public better
understand science and technology. This educational goal mainly aimed at build-
ing support for science and research. As the authors of the FP5 put it: “it will be
important to improve the image of science and research in society with the objec-
tive of creating a favorable environment for research and technological develop-
ment” (EC 1999). The EC mainly conceived the public as scientifically unedu-
cated, lacking information and knowledge on science and technology, a vision
that has been described as the “deficit model” (Irwin 2014).
The emergence of a discourse promoting public participation coincides with
the arrival, in 1999, of the Belgian physicist Philippe Busquin as the new Com-
missioner for Research. In an interview with a journalist of Nature, he empha-
sized that “his political vision is community-based” by pointing to his personal
biography (Dickson 1999). As a follow up to his postgraduate research in the
1970s – on the impact of industry on local communities – he created “a group
made up of representatives from petrochemical companies, local authorities and
local people” to discuss “the environmental impact of the companies’ activities.”
It was under Busquin’s impetus that the internal working paper Science, Soci-
ety and the Citizen in Europe (EC 2000) was produced within the Directorate-
General for Research and opened the way to the institutionalization of public
participation in science and technology policies at the EC. This document con-
tained the first appearance of a discourse on “public participation” in science
and technology policy. It called for the “involvement of representatives of civil
society … particularly in defining the priorities of public-funded research” (p. 8)
and for setting-up new forms of dialogue (such as citizens’ juries, fora, and con-
ferences) between the different actors involved in science and research, namely
“researchers, experts, political decision-makers, industrialists and members of the
public” (p. 16). Public participation was seen as necessary to address the pub-
lic’s “growing skepticism, even to the point of hostility,” towards “advances in
knowledge and technology” as well as the disappearance of an “unquestioning
enthusiasm” for science and technology (p. 5). Unlike in the 1990s, it was no
longer solely education that was envisioned as a remedy against “skepticism”
or “hostility,” but participation in decision-making. In the 1990s, several public
controversies involving science, technology, and medicine (GMOs, “mad cow”
1 3
From Deliberation toProduction
disease, contaminated blood, chicken dioxin, etc.) had received wide media atten-
tion. What was previously framed as the public’s “ignorance” about science was
now increasingly viewed as public “hostility” towards science and expertise, with
participation emerging as a solution to deal with a “crisis of expertise” and trust
in scientific institutions (Abels 2002; Ferretti 2007).
This “crisis of trust” (real or imagined) did not solely concern scientific exper-
tise but also political institutions more generally. Philippe Busquin took office in
a time of turmoil within the Commission: the Santer Commission had recently
resigned following a deep conflict with the Parliament, and Busquin’s predecessor
Edith Cresson had been accused of nepotism. As a result of this institutional tur-
moil, the EC published in 2001 its White Paper on European Governance, which
aimed at putting forward a roadmap for the future reforms of the European insti-
tutions. The White Paper affirmed that “participation” should be a key principle
of “good governance,” promoted in order to restore trust in institutions and to
help solve the perceived legitimacy deficit of the EC (Sternberg 2013). In the
previous decade, public participation had emerged as a political tool to deal with
public opposition to policies, for example, in the field of development, where the
World Bank became a champion of public participation (Bhatnagar and Williams
1992).
In the EU, these changes, both in discourse and in institutional structures,
resulted from actions taken by a small number of individual policymakers, such
as Busquin, in a general context of legitimacy deficit, where policymakers per-
ceived public participation as a tool to restore trust in institutions. But they also
owed to broader changes in research policies at the EU level. The Lisbon Agenda,
published in 2000 in the aftermath of the unemployment crisis of the mid-90s
(James 2012), placed research as a key means to sustain economic growth,
through the making of a “Knowledge Society.” Philippe Busquin remembers:
I also found that in the European Commission, in the other directorates-gen-
eral, research was absolutely not perceived as important for the economy
[…] The Lisbon summit in the spring of 2000 was a turning point. For the
first time, heads of state have agreed to put research at the top of the Euro-
pean political agenda (Busquin and Louis 2005: 91–92).
In the Lisbon Agenda, the (economic) future of the EU was presented as lying in
its ability to produce knowledge and innovation. This economic justification also
served for the establishment of the European Research Area by Busquin in 2000.
This new research and innovation policy was seen as a way to improving Europe’s
competitive position towards the United States and Japan (Ulnicane 2015), a con-
cern that had been a major driving force of research policies at the national levels
since the 1950s.
This agenda was directly taken up by the Science and Society Programme of
the DG, and provided the rationale for the promotion of participation. As the
authors of the Science, Society and the Citizen in Europe put it:
The Lisbon objectives will be achieved only by an economy geared to innova-
tion and a society fully committed to it. There is a need to develop an open
H.Macq et al.
1 3
mind to innovation, in full knowledge of the associated benefits and risks, and
to create an open dialogue between researchers, industrialists, policy-makers,
interest groups and the public as a whole (EC 2000).
The key point was the focus on the necessity of “a society fully committed” to inno-
vation and of citizens possessing an “an open mind” (i.e. supportive) towards inno-
vation. An “open dialogue,” later reframed as “participation,” became a means to
achieve this goal.
This new focus on public participation and deliberation is reflected in the last FP5
Work Programme (EC 2001) in which a section dedicated to “dialogue with the pub-
lic” presented a new objective: “To explore mechanisms for involving the public in
science policy related debates in order to identify ways experience could be shared
and generalized across Europe” (p. 32). The Work Programme listed such “experi-
ences,” such as deliberative polling, standing consultative panels, focus groups, or
citizens’ juries, carried out in other fields of public policy at the local and national
levels. The same year, 2001, saw the birth of the Science and Society Directorate
within the DG, composed of several units devoted to issues related to governance,
ethics, gender equality, and raising awareness of young people about science. The
creation of this directorate, rather than a subaltern “unit” or “programme,” consti-
tuted a major step in the institutionalization of public participation at the EC.
The focus on deliberative participation was formalized in the first year of the 6th
FP (2002–2006) with the launch of a Science and Society Programme and the pub-
lication of the Science and Society Action Plan (EC 2002). The Action Plan listed
existing initiatives and proposed a number of actions to be developed, including
organizing “local and regional dialogues on ‘Science and Society’” and exchanging
“best information […] on the use of participatory procedures.”
This trend continued with the 7th FP (2007–2014), where the Science and Soci-
ety Programme was renamed Science in Society. A stronger emphasis was put on
how to implement the exchange between researchers, stakeholders, citizens, and,
significantly, civil society organizations. This discourse was therefore accompa-
nied by the creation of a number of new instruments (such as the Mobilisation and
Mutual Learning Action plans) that were designed to meet the overall objective of
civil society participation. The program grew into a key place for experimenting
with new types of interactions between science and society. Learning was no longer
envisioned solely as a transmission of knowledge from experts to citizens, but as a
mutual learning experience.
The Science and Society Directorate, which elaborated these different pro-
grammes, comprised then up to 140 staff members and funded around 350 projects
in this field between 2003 and 2013, of which almost one quarter were related to
deliberative public participation in policymaking (Fig.1).
To summarize, the first discourse on public participation in science and tech-
nology, which emerged with FP5 and became institutionalized with FP6 and FP7,
focused on the inclusion of different publics in dialogues, debates, and deliberations
as means for contributing to decision-making. Public participation was understood
as a part of the policymaking processes, with the hope that by contributing to the
definition of research policies, citizens would embrace the promises of science and
1 3
From Deliberation toProduction
technology. However, the “deficit model” persisted: participation was just another
means to “educate” citizens (Irwin 2006). As a former head of one of the Unit of the
Science and Society Directorate put it in an interview:
Well, I observed that all the guys who are involved in science policy have a
very positivist vision of science. They have what I call the ‘old physicist’ syn-
drome. (…) They say ‘hey, how can we make young people like science?!’
(…) I did not share that view and I elaborated a lot on the report of Brian
Wynne (Policy Officer #1, interview, 27 April 2015).
The “report of Brian Wynne” refers to the 2007 report Taking European Knowl-
edge Society Seriously (Felt and Wynne 2007), which was mandated by the Direc-
torate General for Research on the topic of European science and governance. This
report, published at the beginning of FP7 was produced by an expert group com-
posed of influential STS scholars: Ulrike Felt, Brian Wynne, Michel Callon, Sheila
Jasanoff, Pierre-Benoit Joly, Arie Rip and Andy Stirling. As the report explicitly
mentioned, its authors took into consideration three main concerns, namely, the
“widely-recognized problem of European public unease with science,” the “Euro-
pean Union’s commitment” to improve civil society’s involvement in science and
governance, and the need to “address urgent European policy challenges that are
often taken as strongly scientific in nature – including climate change, sustainability,
environment and development.” The report presented a strongly critical perspective,
considering that the sources of public concerns with certain technological advances
lied in what it called “inadequacies in the governance of innovation itself” (Felt and
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
2002 2005 2008 2011 2014 2017 2020
Number of abstract
s
Participation
in deliberation
Participation
in production
Science and Society
FP5,FP6
Science in Society
FP7
Science with and for Society
Horizon2020
Fig. 1 Discursive changes on public participation as seen in the “objectives” field of the projects funded
by the Framework Programmes Science in Society, Science and Society and Science with and for Society
(n = 440)
H.Macq et al.
1 3
Wynne 2007: 11). It then criticized the institutional focus on deliberation only after
innovation took place, as if the public was only interested in downstream questions.
This approach, the authors concluded, marginalized “legitimate democratic con-
cerns about the inputs that drive innovation research in the first place” (Felt and
Wynne 2007: 11). The authors pleaded for the development of “upstream” public
deliberation and for resolving profound normative questions concerning the shap-
ing of science and innovation, including the direction, scale and speed of research.
It also criticized the instrumentalist vision of science, limited to its contribution to
economic growth, and the unreasonable expectation that scientific innovations alone
could solve societal challenges.
According to a policy officer, that report “did not do a good job in terms of influ-
encing [policy officers]” (Policy Officer #2, interview, 22 April 2016). However, its
publication highlights the role played by STS scholars in the promotion of public
participation within the DG Research (Felt 2010; Aguiton 2018). This report is just
one example of several reports commissioned by policy officers of the DG Research
in the second half of the 2000s (Stirling 2006; Felt and Wynne 2007; Pestre 2007;
Mitcham and Stilgoe 2009; Siune and Markus 2009)3. Academic STS scholars
embraced this mission to “democratize science” and were hoping that their scholar-
ship would translate into public policies. Overwhelmingly, they recommended pub-
lic participation as a means to “democratize science.” As the STS scholar Andrew
Stirling put it:
[There is a] need for the public engagement community as a whole to concen-
trate considerably greater resources than has hitherto been the case on the rais-
ing of awareness – especially among senior policy makers. This means getting
beyond haphazard interactions with individual decision makers – no matter
how influential – and aiming for continuous long term structural engagement
with policy making processes as a whole (Stirling 2006).
At the end of the 2000s, the discourse on public participation in policymaking,
under various headings such as “public engagement,” was institutionalized with the
benediction of academics eager to impact policy. However, the subsequent funding
of these initiatives did not always match the ambitions of academic scholars. Indeed,
after the first phase, which saw the emergence of public participation in science pol-
icymaking, a second phase started around the end of the 2000s during which this
discourse gradually evolved and some of its ambitions were scaled back.
Transition: Responsible Research andInnovation (RRI)
The emergence of the “Grand Challenges” rhetoric in EU research policies to
designate specific problems like an ageing society, climate change, or the lim-
its to natural resources, provided another rationale for the involvement of civil
society in research policies. The idea of “Grand Challenges” integrated previous
3 The two scholars mentioned in the introduction (Felt 2010; Ryan 2015) were either part of these expert
groups (Ulrike Felt) or adopted their framing (Lorna Ryan).
1 3
From Deliberation toProduction
commitments about the social function of science, the need for collaboration
among multiple actors, and interdisciplinary perspectives, but changed the spa-
tial outlook of these policies, which were now trans-national or global (Ulnicane
2016). The first use of the Grand Challenges term in EU research policy was in
the 2007 Green Paper on the European Research Area (EC 2007a, b). The paper
called for a broad public consultation in order to “discuss and specify the R&D
orientations […] to address the major challenges that Europe faces in an open
world.” It specified that European research policy had to “experiment with new
ways of involving [European] society at large in the definition, implementation
and evaluation of research agendas” (EC 2007a, b). In line with ideas promoted
within the Science in Society Programme, the idea was to share some of the tradi-
tional prerogatives of science policymakers with structured organizations (univer-
sities, businesses, CSOs, etc.), but also with “citizens.” Not only was participa-
tion presented as a way to smoothen the relationship between science and society
(something previously advocated), but it was also meant to create “a culture and
spirit of innovation” (p. 17), inaugurating a growing emphasis on “innovation” in
science and technology policy discourse.
“Innovation” became a particularly strong focus in European science and tech-
nology policy after the publication of the 2006 expert report Creating an Innova-
tive Europe (Aho and Georghiou 2006). The authors of the report argued that
“an R&D-driven strategy was insufficient” and that policies should foster “a cul-
ture celebrating innovation” (Edler and Georghiou 2007). The 2010 Europe 2020
Strategy (for “smart, sustainable and inclusive growth”), emphasized the role of
innovation in reaching economic objectives (EC 2010).
The global financial crisis of 2008 goes a long way in explaining these changes.
As José Manuel Barroso, then President of the EC, stated emphatically in the 2010
Commission’s communication of Europe 2020:
The crisis is a wake-up call, the moment where we recognize that “business
as usual” would consign us to a gradual decline, to the second rank of the
new global order. This is Europe’s moment of truth. It is the time to be bold
and ambitious (EC 2010).
The economic crisis reinforced previous approaches that considered research and
innovation as the engines of growth and employment. As a policy officer reckons,
it reoriented priorities away from the promotion of public participation as a way
to democratize policymaking:
I think [the economic crisis] gave another argument to those who were
thinking ‘we need research for the industry,’ to solve jobs problems and to
say that research and innovation are needed for tomorrow’s jobs. And, it
this perspective, the romanticized ideal of public participation have been set
aside a little bit (Policy Officer #1, interview, 10 May 2016).
This instrumental vision of research did not emerge in 2008. In the deep eco-
nomic crisis following World War II, scientific research had been frequently her-
alded as a driver of economic growth at the national level. Half a century later,
H.Macq et al.
1 3
the EC resorted to the same argument, but this time with a growing focus on
“innovation.” The message was heard by the research community, as the propor-
tion of successfully funded research projects containing the word “innovation”
in their objectives increased threefold between 2008 and 2017 (from 6 to 18%)
and twenty-fold in the different science-society programmes (from 3% to 64%)
(Fig. 1). Although a rather banal justification for national science policies, this
argument had a considerable effect on shaping the Framework Programmes. The
idea of a European Research Area, which had become a political reality under
Busquin in 2000, was now linked, at the highest policy level, to the promise of
“innovation.” In 2010, the Commission launched its flagship initiative Innovation
Union 2020 (EC 2011), which aimed to “unleash Europe’s innovative capabili-
ties” as well as to re-focus research and innovation policy on the “Grand Chal-
lenges” faced by European society.
In Innovation Union 2020, partnerships between “all key stakeholders” of the
research process were valued in order to “provide platforms for open innovation
and citizen engagement” (EC 2011). Firms were encouraged to “co-innovate with
users and consumers in order to better satisfy their needs or create new routes to
market” (p. 20). Citizens were considered as ‘users’ and ‘consumers’ who were
invited to “co-innovate” with firms. Like in the first discourse on public participa-
tion, the rationale was to better align research to the need of society (or at least,
the need of users and consumers). Yet, interestingly, another justification was
also highlighted: the participation of users and consumers in the research process
would facilitate the creation of products by easing the transition from research
to market. According to Edler and Georghiou (2007), since the mid-2000s at the
European Union level, “a new interest [had] emerged in the meaning of demand-
side approaches to innovation and, more concretely, in the use of public demand
as an engine for innovation.” Participation was seen in this framework as a way to
produce marketable innovations, to bring new topics for European research, and
to align research on the needs of European society.
In 2010, significant personal and institutional changes took place in the Com-
mission. The Irish politician Máire Geoghegan-Quinn became Commissioner
with a portfolio including research and science policy. She chose the Dutch civil
servant Robert-Jan Smits to become Director-General of the DG for Research,
after working under Busquin. Robert-Jan Smits had obtained a master’s in inter-
national relations at the Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales in
Geneva, at a time when the school distinguished itself from the nearby, but more
liberal and participatory Institut Universitaire d’Etudes du Développement. He
then pursued his training in international law at the Fletcher School of Law &
Diplomacy at Tufts University. Although the position of DG is subordinate to the
Commissioner, it held more influence on the content of research policy, the DG
being, as a reporter for Science put it, the “most powerful civil servant in Brus-
sels’s science policy circles” (Rabesandratana 2018). Smits views about science
and society were very different from those of Busquin. As a policy officer made
clear:
1 3
From Deliberation toProduction
It has to be said that the Director-General does not like [science and society
issues], this is why in 2010 he reduced all the services that were working
on them. (…) His mindset is, above all, to get back to the good old face to
face where research is the business of the academia and the industry. So to
get back to this face to face without the complications brought by this third
actor [civil society] (Policy Officer #1, interview, 10 May 2016).
Indeed, under the Director General Robert-Jan Smits, a profound restructuring of
the DG took place in order to better integrate “innovation” in the programmes.
Three months after his nomination, the DG was renamed DG for Research Innova-
tion and Science. At the same time, the activities related to science and society were
marginalized: the dedicated Science and Society Directorate was cut, the number of
policy officers working on science-society issues was downsized to 40 staff mem-
bers (down from 140) and regrouped in a unit named “Ethics and Gender” within
the European Research Area Directorate: there was no longer a directorate or even
a unit specifically dedicated to science-society issues. Finally, the Science in Soci-
ety Programme was not renewed in the Commission’s proposal for Horizon 2020
(Policy officer #4, interview, 11 May 2015).
It is in this context that the label of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)
emerged in the EU.4 The first public mention of RRI appeared in a 2012 document,
Responsible Research and Innovation. Europe’s ability to respond to societal chal-
lenges (Directorate-General for Research and Innovation 2012). In that document,
Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, then European Commissioner for Research, Innovation
and Science, placed the emergence of RRI in line with the Europe 2020 strategy:
The grand societal challenges that lie before us will have a far better chance of
being tackled if all societal actors are fully engaged in the co-construction of
innovative solutions, products and services. Responsible Research and Innova-
tion means that societal actors work together during the whole research and
innovation process in order to better align both the process and its outcomes,
with the values, needs and expectations of European society (Directorate-Gen-
eral for Research and Innovation 2012; our emphasis).
The term “co-construction” that sociologists of science and technology had elabo-
rated and used so often by that time – although with different meanings – had been
directly imported into policy discourses and associated with Responsible Research
and Innovation. However, in its implementation, the concept of co-construction, was
not deployed as scholars who understood “co-construction” as a redistribution of
power between experts and non-experts (Callon) or as the “co-production” of epis-
temic norms and institutions (Jasanoff). Indeed, in the 8th Framework Programme
(2014–2020), named Horizon 2020, the science-society relationship was still con-
ceived in very traditional terms – predating “co-construction” ideals – since society
was seen as having to support science and technology because the latter powerfully
contributed to economic progress and to solving societal challenges.
4 Although a first reference to “Responsible Research and Application of Science and Technology” can
be found in the FP6 (European Community 2002).
H.Macq et al.
1 3
The concept of Responsible Research and Innovation nevertheless played a sig-
nificant role in the evolution of the Commission’s science policy. The concept was
elaborated by René von Schomberg, who held a PhD in Philosophy and STS, and
had been working as policy officer in DG Research since 1998 (von Schomberg
2012). Conceived as part of a sort of survival strategy by the remaining members
of the previous Directorate, the label “Responsible Research and Innovation” was
coined to salvage the previous science-society activities in anticipation of the next
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme. According to one of the officers involved:
You have to remember that it all happened in a period of downsizing. (…) So,
we had to refocus on our core objectives. (…) How was it possible to trans-
form what we had learned in the Science-Society programmes in a more politi-
cally relevant action? (…) In a day-long brainstorming meeting gathering all
the staff members, we happened to coin the expression RRI (Policy Officer #4,
interview, 11 May 2015).
The six dimensions (or “keys”) of RRI (public engagement, gender equality, sci-
ence education, ethics, open access, governance) therefore mirror almost perfectly
the previous work topics of the Units in charge of the FP6 Science and Society and
FP7 Science in Society programmes. According to a policy officer, the label RRI
was intended to be a strategic resource to raise the interest and enroll some mem-
bers of the European Parliament during a workshop organized by the staff members
in charge of the Science in Society programme between Autumn 2010 and Spring
2011 (Policy Officer #4, interview, 11 May 2015). After this workshop, the planned
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme received numerous amendments that reintro-
duced a science-society programme, under the name Science with and for Society
(SwafS). It became a dedicated “unit” – administratively more powerful than a “pro-
gramme” – within the European Research Area Directorate and saw an increase in
budget (though a decrease in relative terms): from 330M€ in FP7 (0.65% of the total
R&D budget) to 462M€ (0.6% of the total R&D budget). The Science with and for
Society’s first Work Programme claimed that it would “be instrumental in address-
ing the European societal challenges tackled by Horizon 2020, building capacities
and developing innovative ways of connecting science to society.” It also highlighted
how much it was part of the RRI ambitions: “This approach to research and inno-
vation is termed Responsible Research and Innovation” (EC 2013). In other terms,
RRI was not a radically new initiative, as it was often presented, but a powerful tool
in recoding science-society topics as a key dimension of research and innovation
processes. RRI allowed these topics to fit in the new orientations of research and
innovation policies, salvaging what had been established in the previous period.
By developing the concept of RRI, policymakers brought the idea of innova-
tion to bear on “Grand Challenges,” bringing along notions of user-led innovation.
Indeed, by the years 2010 a number of technological innovations, especially in the
field of NTIC, made clear the benefits of involving users. These notions opened the
door to the promotion, within the Science with and for Society Programme, of a
new form of public participation focusing on the involvement of a public conceived
as consumer and user of innovations, not as citizens concerned about the political
implications of research policy. Both the financial crisis of 2008 and the involvement
1 3
From Deliberation toProduction
of another epistemic community—economists and management experts focused on
innovation, rather than STS scholars—contributed to these transformations in the
reframing of public participation.
Public Participation asProduction
The EU science and technology policies evolved once again when the civil engi-
neer Carlos Moedas took office at the end of 2014 as the new Commissioner for
Research, Innovation and Science. As STS scholar Arie Rip, chair of the Expert
Advisory Group for the Science with and for Society Programme in 2014 and 2015,
commented:
When in 2015 the new Commissioner Carlos Moedas (for Research and Inno-
vation) came in, he introduced his own approach, the three Os: Open innova-
tion, Open science, Open to the world. One effect that is visible is that the
Advisory Group SwafS/RRI has to take it into account, and is now asked to
advise on a new fashionable concept, ‘citizen science’, which has diverging
and somewhat contested interpretations (Rip 2016).
The expression “citizen science” had been coined independently in 1995 by sociolo-
gist Alan Irwin to refer to the involvement of citizens in deliberations about science
and in 1996 by the ornithologist Rick Bonney to refer to data collection by citizens
for scientific projects (Strasser etal. 2019). As an ambiguous expression, covering
both ideas of participation adopted by the EC, it was perfectly suited to display the
continuity and novelty in EU research and technology policies.
Carlos Moedas, seizing on the second meaning of citizen science, expressed this
vision in a speech he gave in June 2015:
On 25 April this year, an earthquake of magnitude 7.3 hit Nepal. To get real-
time geographical information, the response teams used an online mapping
tool called Open Street Map. (…) We are moving into a world of open inno-
vation and user innovation. (…) A world where new knowledge is created
through collaborations involving thousands of people from across the world
and from all walks of life (Moedas 2015).
This speech, addressed to members of research and innovation organizations, was
entitled “Open Innovation, Open Science, Open to the World” and focused on the
“need to get research results to market” and include citizens in research and inno-
vation. This new strategy moved the conception of public participation toward the
direct involvement of the publics in the production of knowledge and innovation.
The fact that Moedas came up with a new strategy for his Research, Innovation
and Science portfolio is not too surprising given the mandate he received from the
President of the Commission Jean-Claude Juncker. In the very first paragraph of his
mission letter to Moedas, Juncker emphasized the renewal he wanted his commis-
sion to incarnate:
H.Macq et al.
1 3
With the start of the new Commission, we have an exceptional opportunity,
but also an obligation, to make a fresh start, to address the difficult geo-politi-
cal situation, to strengthen economic recovery and to build a Europe that deliv-
ers jobs and growth for its citizens (Juncker 2014).
This quote also reveals something of the particular mindset of Juncker and his com-
missioners at the time: the economy was perceived to have not yet recovered from
the 2008 financial crisis and policymakers had an obligation to find a way to con-
tinue the process of economic recovery.
In 2016, the EC published a new overall strategy for research and innovation:
“Open Innovation, Open Science, Open to the World” (Directorate-General for
Research and Innovation 2016). This strategy expressed the desire to “open up the
innovation process to all active players so that the knowledge can circulate more
freely and be transformed into products and services that create new markets, foster-
ing a strong culture of entrepreneurship.” The goals of the new research and innova-
tion policy (“create new markets”) and the idea of including “all active players” in
innovation remained similar to previous policy documents. But the “active players”
were increasingly cast, not just as users of products, but also as “citizens” (and “civil
society organizations”). This strategy presented a mix of the two discourses we have
outlined: citizens as participating in deliberative procedures (having “a say in what
research is meaningful to them” and redirecting “research agendas towards issues of
concern to citizens”), but also as a potential “source of innovative ideas” along the
idea of co-creation endorsed by the EC. The idea that citizens could do more than
voice their opinions in deliberative procedures took shape around the notion of “citi-
zen science,” understood as the participation of non-professional scientists in the
production of scientific knowledge. For the EC, citizens were considered “valid pro-
ducers of knowledge,” because, “just as people offer spare rooms via AirBnB, why
shouldn’t they be allowed to offer spare brain power via citizen science?” (p. 34).
The traditional way of envisioning participation in decision-making and the new
conception of public participation based on knowledge co-creation were expanded in
the following two Work Programmes (WP 2017 and WP 2018). This new discourse
had taken shape in the 2009 FP7 Work Programme (EC 2008), when civil society
and civil society organizations were invited to participate in “research activities” (p.
6). By 2016, policymakers acknowledged that “citizen science is increasingly on the
agenda” (Directorate-General for Research and Innovation 2016).
This evolution towards a new conception of public participation was recognized
by the actors themselves. In the Horizon 2020 Science with and for Society Work
Programme, a call for projects (2016–2017) stated:
There is increasing interest, and occasional experiments in processes of co-
construction (e.g. agenda-building and policy inputs, co-evaluation, co-fund-
ing) and co-production (e.g. citizen science). (…) While traditional approaches
to public engagement will remain, this topic constitutes an opening towards
the ‘new wave’ of public engagement where ‘co-creation’ is a key notion. It
1 3
From Deliberation toProduction
will provide innovative solutions to the more heavily technology and/or sys-
tems oriented approaches in other parts of Horizon2020 (EC 2016: 16).
The shift in discourse from the discursive to the productive did not remain at the
level of the EC strategic documents; it also appeared, as one would expect, in the
projects funded by the various science—society programmes (Fig.1). Mentions of
“deliberative public participation” rose rapidly after 2004, peaking at almost 40%
of all funded projects under the Science in Society Programme (FP7), only to drop
to less than 12% under Science with and for Society (Horizons 2020). After 2016,
terms related to “public participation in research and innovation” surpassed those
related to “deliberative public participation.”5 This observation does not imply
that a profound change occurred in the concrete participatory practices developed
through these projects, but it is a good indication that the changing policies of the
EC impacted the way participation was conceived and promoted.
The introductory paragraph of the 2018–2020 Science with and for Society Work
Programme foregrounded citizen science: “[Science with and for Society] will
explore and support citizen science in a broad sense, encouraging citizens and other
stakeholders to participate in all stages of R&I” (EC 2017). The Work Programme
mostly defined the expected outcomes of citizen science in terms of the “Develop-
ment of new knowledge and innovations by citizen scientists” (p. 37), while down-
grading “Agenda setting” and “foresight,” two essential parts of the “deliberative”
model of public participation, as optional criteria for the contribution to implement-
ing RRI (in this case through its ‘public engagement’ dimension) (p. 8).
The reactions of policy officers who worked for the previous science-society pro-
grammes to this new vision of participation was not always positive. Some believed
that deliberative participation was more important than direct contribution to scien-
tific research:
Citizen Science, to me and to a lot of other people, it is essentially birds
counting, which means that it is often importing data into science. (…) But
it is rarely (…) asking citizens their thoughts on research agendas or on an
approach of innovation. (…) So I was, and I am still afraid that I could be
asked to work on birds’ counting and to drop the rest, because to me it would
be denaturing the work of Science and Society (Policy Officer #3, interview,
17 May 2016).
This last quote shows the potential gap that the policy officers saw between the
deliberative form of public participation (promoted during the 2000s) and the pro-
ductive one (since the years 2010s). Instead of a progression in the amount of power
given to citizens in the research process, they saw it as a depoliticization of citizen
engagement, now reduced to “bird counting.”
Even though one can map interesting dynamics of these two kinds of discourses,
it is important not to miss the bigger picture. A broader look at the entire set of
projects funded by the Commission reveals that the discourse on public participa-
tion, in one form or the other, remained marginal among all the funded projects. No
5 One has to keep in mind that at least 2 years occur between the drafting of a call and project launch.
H.Macq et al.
1 3
more than 3.5% of the 65,488 projects funded outside the different science-society
programmes (SaS, SiS or SwafS) mention terms related to public participation. Fur-
thermore, this proportion has remained nearly constant over time, even showing a
decrease since 2007. In other terms, the effort of policymakers (and STS scholars) to
embed public participation in scientific research more broadly remained confined to
the science-society programmes and did not spread beyond. And even though RRI
was envisioned as a cross-cutting issue in Horizon 2020, it did not succeed in main-
streaming public participation activities in the funded projects. Yet, considering the
progressive institutionalization of public participation in the wider context of the
European research policies brings an additional nuance. Even if it remained mar-
ginal overall in research policy as well as among the funded projects, the notion of
public participation did bring along significant institutional changes, including the
creation of administrative units and programmes, the hiring of administrative staff,
and the production of multiple internal and commissioned reports. Shifting from
descriptive discourse analysis to a public policy analysis, we have begun to under-
stand why the notions of public participation have changed over time.
The future of public participation in European science policy, in one form or
the other, is far from certain. It even seems that the importance of public participa-
tion and other science-society issues is currently receding. Indeed, the expression
“Responsible Research and Innovation” is mentioned in only one occasion in the
Commission’s proposal for the next Framework Programme, and no specific pro-
gram is dedicated to pursue the aims of the Science with and for Society Programme
(EC 2018). The potential disappearance of science-society issues in the next frame-
work programme spurred reactions in different communities. An online petition
launched in 2018 by the national correspondents of the Science with and for Society
Programme denounced the lack of “a specific programme line or a sufficient budget
dedicated to Science, Society and Citizens’ activities” in the Commission’s proposal
for the new FP (SIS.net 2018). The petition called on the European Institutions to
“set a separate programme in line with a sufficient separate budget for the succes-
sor of the ‘Science with and for Society’ programme.” This call was echoed by a
letter to Science signed by a list of researchers involved in the promotion of RRI
through European funding in the past years (Mejlgaard etal. 2018). These petitions
show that science-society issues were sufficiently institutionalized as to federate
actors beyond DG Research around shared interests in maintaining specific dedi-
cated programmes promoting them. Ultimately, this mobilization of interested actors
makes visible the economy of public participation and science-society issues that
has developed over time.
Conclusion: The Political Economy ofPublic Participation
To sum up, the “traditional approaches” and the “new wave” of public participa-
tion (in the actor’s terms), or the “deliberative” and the “productive” (in our terms),
differ analytically along the four dimensions we selected for our discourse analysis
(Table1).
1 3
From Deliberation toProduction
In this paper, we have presented, for analytical purpose, the evolution of one dis-
course to another as a linear process. Of course, reality is more complex. There have
been overlaps between these two ideal-typical discourses and the frontiers between
them were sometimes blurred. However, our analysis suggests that these ideal-typ-
ical discourses reflect a broader evolution in the way public participation has been
conceived and promoted by the EC. In other words, even if particular projects, con-
cepts and strategies have sometimes mixed the two outlined discourses, the ration-
ales for public participation have globally evolved through time.
Simply noting that the rationales for public participation in science and technol-
ogy have changed over time does not provide a satisfying explanation for why they
evolved. Discourses are embedded in actors and institutions and understanding their
own dynamics is essential. We explained the discursive changes in the ideas about
participation at two levels: at the level of actors’ dynamics within the institution and
at the broader level of political, economic, and cultural factors impacting research
and innovation policy.
First, the dynamics between different actors played a crucial role. Our analysis
points to conflicts between different individual and collective actors that, over time,
promoted different conception of public participation in science and technology.
These conflicts and coalitions strongly influenced the way participation has been
both originally conceived and promoted and, more recently, redefined to fit the posi-
tion of newly appointed dominant actors. In this respect, Commissioner Philippe
Busquin played a significant role as an “institutional entrepreneur,” i.e. someone
who acts to create, maintain, or weaken an institution (Lawrence et al. 2009). He
succeeded in introducing public participation as one of the crucial dimensions of the
relationship between science and society, thereby contributing to institutionalizing
public participation in the EC’s policies. But our study also shows the limits of high-
ranking policymakers. When Robert-Jan Smits was Director-General of the DG for
Research and Innovation, he planned to disband the Science in Society Programme,
but lower level policy officers were able to salvage most of it by rebranding it as
Responsible Research and Innovation.
Policy officers also accomplished significant institutional work when they pro-
moted the deliberative vision of public participation within the DG. In their institu-
tional work, they mobilized a number of STS scholars that contributed, by providing
expertise, to support the claims of policy entrepreneurs. The influence of this epis-
temic community (Haas 1992; Meyer and Molyneux-Hodgson 2010), composed of
scholars working on science governance, is characteristic of the 2000s, when there
Table 1 Characteristics of the two discourses of the European Commission on public participation in
science and technology
Participation in decision-making Participation in knowledge and innovation-making
What Decision (policymaking) Knowledge and/or innovation
Who Society, public (collective) Citizens, users, consumers (individuals)
How Dialogue (discussing) Co-creation (producing)
Why Generate legitimacy (trust) Produce economic and societal value (commodities)
H.Macq et al.
1 3
were frequent interactions – and a progressive hybridization – between academic
knowledge on science governance and normative political discourses. In this period,
expert reports, research projects, conferences, and advisory groups contributed to
the translation of STS concepts into the political sphere.
Second, the institutionalization of public participation, in its originally delibera-
tive form, was partially due to events outside of the administration of the EC (Green-
wood etal. 2002). Indeed, the different crises of the 1990s (sociotechnical crisis
induced by the GMO and ‘mad cow’ scandals, as well as a broader crisis of legiti-
macy in the European institutions) favored the emergence of public participation in
the agenda of the EC. More recently, the economic crisis of the 2000s, redirecting
research policies toward innovation production, contributed to changing the concep-
tion of which kind of participation should be promoted and for what reason. As pre-
vious crises before it, the late 2000s economic crisis appears through our analysis
as a key element to justify the evolution of public participation, as conceived and
promoted by the EC over time. Our conclusion therefore focuses on the political
economy of research and innovation and its impacts on public participation.
As shown through this paper, public participation is a polymorphic concept,
which forces analysts to consider the multiple justifications that were invoked to pro-
mote it. Two discourses now coexist within the EU “Research and Innovation” poli-
cies. While public participation had initially been conceived and promoted as a way
to build legitimacy of research policy decisions by involving publics into decision-
making processes, it is now also promoted as a way to produce better/more knowl-
edge and innovation by involving publics into knowledge and innovation-making
processes, and thus building legitimacy for science and technology as a whole.
This changing conception of public participation is partially due to the actors’
and institutional dynamics within the EC and its administration. However, if one is
to understand the broader picture of what happened at the EC, one has to take into
account the changing political-economic context of research and innovation policies
as well.
Our results offer precious insights on the effects economic dynamics can have on
public participation. Thorpe and Gregory, through the analysis of public engagement
with science in the UK, previously showed the close interconnection of participatory
discourse with the post-industrial economic strategy of the British state. Following
their analysis, public engagement in science policy derived political legitimacy from
being embedded in discourses of post-Fordism and the knowledge economy (Thorpe
and Gregory 2010).
Our own analysis shows that the effect of the political-economic context is not
restricted to the emergence of the first discourse on public participation; it was also
instrumental in shaping its evolution. In other words, the economic dynamics after
the 2008 financial crisis justified the shift from the original discourse of public par-
ticipation centered on decision-making toward the inclusion of publics in innova-
tion-making. The economic crisis made it almost impossible not to emphasize the
imperative to innovate in European research and innovation policies. And it was this
focus on innovation (conceived as the production of marketable products), combined
to institutional changes (reduction of the number of staff members, potential disap-
pearance of a dedicated science-society programme in Horizon 2020) that brought
1 3
From Deliberation toProduction
the DG’s staff members working on public participation to adapt their discourse and
their conception of public participation to fit with this new imperative, giving rise to
the emergence of RRI and, later, to a new wave of participatory processes aiming at
involving publics directly to the production of science and innovation.
Taking into account the political economy of public participation in research and
innovation policies allowed us to offer possible explanations as to why and how
the latter was institutionalized at a given policy level. In the case of the EC, pub-
lic participation always remained a marginal part of the EU research and innova-
tion policies. Through its career in the institutions, it has been reframed so as to fit
with the new powerful imperative of fostering innovation for the sake of economic
growth, the resolution of the so-called “Grand Challenges,” or the ideal of “Respon-
sible Research and Innovation.” The institutionalization of public participation at the
EC and its evolution over time did not necessarily mark a significant commitment
to upsetting the balance of power between citizens, on one side, and policymakers
and scientific institutions, on the other. Discourses on participation reflected shift-
ing views about citizens and their role in the governance of science and technology.
Citizens now seem to be conceived as consumers and potential co-creators of sci-
ence, technology, and innovation, rather than potential contributors to debates about
how to govern them. Public participation in science has therefore proven to be a
particularly flexible concept which could be adapted to various contexts in order to
serve different goals. This observation warrants critical appraisal from STS scholars
of the way the conception of participation is evolving, as well as of the way it might
further evolve in the future.
Acknowledgements We would like to thank Pierre Delvenne, Pierre-Benoît Joly, Brice Laurent, Helga
Nowotny, Dominique Pestre, and Arie Rip for helpful discussions and comments.
References
Abels, Gabriele. 2002. Experts, Citizens, and Eurocrats: Towards a Policy Shift in the Governance of
Biopolitics in the EU. European Intergration Online Papers 6.
Abels, Gabriele. 2007. Citizen involvement in public policy-making: Does it improve democratic legiti-
macy and accountability? The case of pTA. Interdisciplinary Information Sciences 13: 103–116.
Aguiton, Sara Angeli. 2018. La démocratie des chimères: gouverner la biologie synthétique. Collection
“Objets d’histoire.” Lormont: Le Bord de l’eau.
Aho, Esko, and Luke Georghiou. 2006. Creating an Innovative Europe. Report of the Independent Expert
Group on R&D and Innovation appointed following the Hampton Court Summit and chaired by Mr.
Esko Aho. 2006: European Commission.
Aldrin, Philippe, and Nicolas Hubé. 2016. L’Union européenne, une démocratie de stakeholders. Gou-
vernement et action publique: 125–152.
Anichini, Giulia, and Suzanne de Cheveigné. 2012. Overview of research related to science in society in
Europe. Science and Public Policy 39: 701–709.
Bauer, Michael W. 2008. Diffuse anxieties, deprived entrepreneurs: Commission reform and middle man-
agement. Journal of European Public Policy 15: 691–707.
Bhatnagar, Bhuvan, and Aubrey C. Williams. 1992. Participatory development and the World Bank:
Potential directions for change. WDP183. The World Bank.
Burgess, Jacquelin, and Jason Chilvers. 2006. Upping the ante: a conceptual framework for designing and
evaluating participatory technology assessments. Science & Public Policy 33: 713–728.
H.Macq et al.
1 3
Busquin, Philippe, and François Louis. 2005. Le déclin de l’empire scientifique européen: comment
enrayer la chute? Voix Politiques. Bruxelles: Luc Pire.
Callon, Michel, Pierre Lascoumes, and Yannick Barthe. 2009. Acting in an Uncertain World. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
Chilvers, Jason, and Matthew Kearnes. 2016. Science, Democracy and Emergent Publics. In Remaking
Participation. Science, Environment and Emergent Publics, eds. Jason Chilvers and Matthew Kear-
nes, 1–27. Oxon, UK; New York, USA: Routledge.
Chilvers, Jason, and Noel Longhurst. 2016. Participation in Transition(s): Reconceiving Public Engage-
ments in Energy Transitions as Co-Produced, Emergent and Diverse. Journal of Environmental
Policy & Planning: 1–23.
Delvenne, Pierre, and Hadrien Macq. 2019. Breaking Bad with the Participatory Turn? Accelerating
Time and Intensifying Value in Participatory Experiments. Science as Culture: 1–24.
Dickson, David. 1999. Bringing a community-based vision to the heart of Europe’s research. Nature 401:
837.
Directorate-General for Research and Innovation. 2012. Responsible Research and Innovation. Europe’s
Ability to Respond to Societal Challenges. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.
Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, ed. 2016. Open Innovation, Open Science, Open to the
World: A Vision for Europe. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.
Edler, Jakob, and Luke Georghiou. 2007. Public procurement and innovation—Resurrecting the demand
side. Research Policy 36: 949–963.
Edler, Jakob, Stefan Kuhlmann, and Maria Behrens. 2003. Changing Governance of Research and Tech-
nology Policy: The European Research Area. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.
European Commission. 1999. Improving the Human Research Potential and the Socio-Economic Knowl-
edge Base, Work Programme.
European Commission. 2000. “Science, Society and the Citizen in Europe.” SEC(2000) 1973. Brussels,
Belgium: European Commission.
European Commission. 2001. Improving the Human Research Potential and the Socio-Economic Knowl-
edge Base, Work Programme.
European Commission. 2002. Science and Society: Action Plan. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publica-
tions of the European Communities.
European Commission. 2007a. “Green Paper. The European Research Area: New Perspectives.”
COM(2007) 161. Brussels, Belgium.
European Commission. 2007b. “Green Paper. The European Research Area: New Perspectives.”
COM(2007) 161 final. Brussels, Belgium: European Commission.
European Commission. 2008. Work Programme 2009. Capacities. Part 5: Science in Society.
European Commission. 2010. “Europe 2020. A Strategy for Smart, Sustainable and Inclusive Growth.”
COM(2010) 2020. Brussels, Belgium: European Commission.
European Commission. 2011. Europe 2020 Flagship Initiative Innovation Union: Communication from
the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Com-
mittee and the Committee of the Regions. Research & Innovation Policy, Luxembourg: European
Commission.
European Commission. 2013. Horizon 2020. Work Programme 2014–2015. Science with and for Society.
European Commission. 2015. Validation of the results of the public consultation on Science 2.0: Science
in Transition. Research and Innovation.
European Commission. 2016. Horizon 2020. Work Programme 2016–2017. Science with and for Society.
European Commission. 2017. Horizon 2020. Work Programme 2018–2020. Science with and for Society.
European Commission. 2018. “Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Coun-
cil establishing Horizon Europe – the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, laying
down its rules for participation and dissemination”. COM(2018) 435 final. Brussels, Belgium: Euro-
pean Commission.
European Community. 1994, Decision No 1110/94/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of
26 April 1994 concerning the fourth framework programme of the European Community activities
in the field of research and technological development and demonstration (1994 to 1998), Official
Journal of the European Communities, L126.
European Community. 2002. Decision No 1513/2002/EC of the European Parliament and of the Coun-
cil of 27 June 2002 concerning the sixth framework programme of the European Community for
research, technological development and demonstration activities, contributing to the creation of the
1 3
From Deliberation toProduction
European Research Area and to innovation (2002 to 2006), Official Journal of the European Com-
munities, L232.
European Economic Community. 1987. Council Decision of 28 September 1987 concerning the frame-
work programme for Community activities in the field of research and technological development
(1987 to 1991), Official Journal of the European Communities, L302.
European Community. 1990. Council Decision of 23 April 1990 concerning the framework programme
of Community activities in the field of research and technological development (1990–1994), Offi-
cial Journal of the European Communities, L117.
Felt, Ulrike. 2010. Vers la construction d’un public européen? Continuités et ruptures dans le discours
politique sur les cultures scientifiques et techniques. Translated by Philippe Chavot and Anne
Masseran. Questions de communication: 33–58.
Felt, Ulrike, and Maximilian Fochler. 2010. Machineries for Making Publics: Inscribing and De-scribing
Publics in Public Engagement. Minerva 48(3): 219–238.
Felt, Ulrike, and Brian Wynne. 2007. Taking European knowledge society seriously. Report of the Expert
Group on Science and Governance to the Science, Economy and Society Directorate, Directorate-
General for Research, European Commission. Brussels, Belgium: European Commission, Directo-
rate-General for Research Science, Economy and Society.
Ferretti, Maria Paola. 2007. Why Public Participation in Risk Regulation? The Case of Authorizing
GMO Products in the European Union. Science as Culture 16: 377–395.
Fiorino, Daniel J. 1989. Environmental risk and democratic process: a critical review. Columbia Journal
of Environmental Law 14: 501–547.
Fisher, Erik. 2011. Public Science and Technology Scholars: Engaging Whom? Science and Engineering
Ethics 17: 607–620.
Greenwood, R., R. Suddaby, and C.R. Hinings. 2002. Theorizing Change: The Role of Professional Asso-
ciations in the Transformation of Institutionalized Fields. The Academy of Management Journal 45:
58–80.
Grove-White, Robin, Phil Macnaghten, and Brian Wynne. 2000. Wisin Up: The Public and New Tech-
nologies. Lancaster, UK: Centre for the Study of Environmental Change.
Guzzetti, Luca. 1995. A brief history of European Union research policy. Nuclear Science and Technol-
ogy Series. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publ. of the European Communities.
Haas, Peter M. 1992. Introduction: epistemic communities and international policy coordination. Interna-
tional Organization 46: 1–35.
Irwin, Alan. 2001. Constructing the scientific citizen: science and democracy in the biosciences. Public
Understanding of Science 10: 1–18.
Irwin, Alan. 2006. The Politics of Talk: Coming to Terms with the “New” Scientific Governance. Social
Studies of Science 36: 299–320.
Irwin, Alan. 2014. From deficit to democracy (re-visited). Public Understanding of Science 23: 71–76.
Irwin, Alan, and Brian Wynne. 1996. Misunderstanding Science? The Public Reconstruction of Science
and Technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
James, Scott. 2012. The Origins and Evolution of the Lisbon Agenda. In The EU’s Lisbon Strategy: Eval-
uating Success, Understanding Failure, eds. Paul Copeland and Dimitris Papadimitriou, 8–28. Pal-
grave Studies in European Union Politics. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Jasanoff, Sheila. 2003. Technologies of humility: Citizen participation in governing science. Minerva
41(3): 223–244.
Joly, Pierre-Benoit. 2015. Governing emerging technologies? The need to think outside the (black) box.
In Science and Democracy. Making knowledge and making power in the biosciences and beyond,
eds. Stephen Hilgartner, Clark A. Miller, and Rob Hagendijk, 133–155. New York: Routledge.
Juncker, Jean-Claude. 2014. Mission letter to the Commissioner for Research. European Commission:
Science and Innovation.
Lawrence, Thomas B., Roy Suddaby, and Bernard Leca (eds.). 2009. Institutional work: actors and
agency in institutional studies of organizations. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Lezaun, J., Noortje Marres, and M. Tironi. 2016. Experiments in participation. In Handbook of Science
and Technology Studies, eds. C. Miller, E. Smitt-Doer, U. Felt, and R. Fouche. Vol. 4. Cambridge:
MIT Press.
Lezaun, J., and L. Soneryd. 2007. Consulting citizens: technologies of elicitation and the mobility of pub-
lics. Public Understanding of Science 16: 279–297.
H.Macq et al.
1 3
Marres, Noortje. 2007. The Issues Deserve More Credit Pragmatist Contributions to the Study of Public
Involvement in Controversy. Social Studies of Science 37: 759–780.
Mejlgaard, Niels, Richard Woolley, Carter Bloch, Susanne Bührer, Erich Griessler, Angela Jäger, Ralf
Lindner, etal. 2018. Europe’s plans for responsible science. Science 361: 761–762.
Meyer, Morgan, and Susan Molyneux-Hodgson. 2010. Introduction: The Dynamics of Epistemic Com-
munities. Sociological Research Online 15: 14.
Mitcham, C., and Jack Stilgoe. 2009. Global Governance of Science. Report of the Expert Group on
Global Governance of Science to the Science, Economy and Society Directorate. Luxembourg:
European Commission, Directorate-General for Research.
Moedas, Carlos. 2015. Open Innovation, Open Science, Open to the World. Discours presented at the ‘A
new start for Europe: Opening up to an ERA of Innovation’ Conference, June 22, Brussels.
Pestre, Dominique. 2007. Science, Society and Politics. Knowledge Societies from an Historical Perspec-
tive. Report to the Science, Economy and Society Directorate. Brussels: European Commission,
Directorate-General for Research.
Rabesandratana, Tania. 2018. One of the most powerful science policy jobs in Brussels changes hands.
Science.
Rip, Arie. 2016. The clothes of the emperor. An essay on RRI in and around Brussels. Journal of Respon-
sible Innovation 3: 290–304.
Saldaña, Johnny. 2012. The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. Second edition. Los Angeles:
SAGE Publications Ltd.
Saurugger, Sabine. 2010. The social construction of the participatory turn: The emergence of a norm in
the European Union. European Journal of Political Research 49: 471–495.
Siune, K., and E. Markus. 2009. Challenging Futures of Science in Society. Emerging Trends and cutting-
edge issues. Brussels: European Commission, Directorate-General for Research.
Sternberg, Claudia Schrag. 2013. Discursive Crisis Management: Stressing and Stretching ‘Democracy’,
1990s–2000s. In The Struggle for EU Legitimacy: Public Contestation, 1950–2005, ed. Claudia
Schrag Sternberg, 128–152. Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics. London: Palgrave Mac-
millan UK.
Stirling, Andy. 2006. From science and society to science in society: towards a framework for “co-oper-
ative research”. Report of a European Commission Workshop; Gover’Science Seminar 2005 - out-
come. Brussels: European Commission, Governance and Scientific Advice Unit of DG RTD.
Stirling, Andy. 2008. “Opening Up” and “Closing Down”: Power, Participation, and Pluralism in the
Social Appraisal of Technology. Science, Technology & Human Values 33: 262–294.
Strasser, Bruno J., Jérôme Baudry, Dana Mahr, Gabriela Sanchez, and Elise Tancoigne. 2019. “Citizen
Science”? Rethinking Science and Public Participation. Science & Technology Studies 32: 52–76.
Thorpe, Charles. 2010. Participation as Post-Fordist Politics: Demos, New Labour, and Science Policy.
Minerva 48(4): 389–411.
Thorpe, Charles, and Jane Gregory. 2010. Producing the Post-Fordist Public: The Political Economy of
Public Engagement with Science. Science as Culture 19: 273–301.
Tyfield, David. 2012. A Cultural Political Economy of Research and Innovation in an Age of Crisis. Min-
erva 50(2): 149–167.
Ulnicane, Inga. 2015. Broadening Aims and Building Support in Science, Technology and Innovation
Policy: The Case of the European Research Area. Journal of Contemporary European Research 11.
Ulnicane, Inga. 2016. “Grand Challenges” concept: a return of the “big ideas” in science, technology and
innovation policy? International Journal of Foresight and Innovation Policy 11: 5–21.
von Schomberg, René. 2012. Prospects for Technology Assessment in a Framework of Responsible
Research. In Technikfolgen abschätzen lehren: Bildungspotenziale transdisziplinärer Methoden, eds.
M. Dusseldorp and R. Beecroft, 39–61. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.
Wynne, Brian. 2006. Public Engagement as a Means of Restoring Public Trust in Science – Hitting the
Notes, but Missing the Music? Public Health Genomics 9: 211–220.
Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps
and institutional affiliations.
A preview of this full-text is provided by Springer Nature.
Content available from Minerva
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
