CASI
The project “Public Participation in Developing a Common Framework for Assessment and Management of Sustainable Innovation” (CASI) is proposed as a response to one of the Grand Challenges set out in the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Union, namely “Climate action, environment resource efficiency and raw materials”.
It represents an EU-wide cross-sectoral partnership on innovation-related challenges and considers not only the impacts of social and technological innovation, but also the types of actors involved and their inherent interests. It thus effectively integrates the perspectives of civil society, SMEs, industry, policy stakeholders, and leading academics. This collaboration investigates the scope of sustainable innovation as a societal phenomenon and enables the elaboration of an assessment framework of sustainable innovation practices, whose application can be successfully integrated into public policy developments. CASI includes a rich and intensive set of activities carried out across the EU. Based on a carefully designed methodology, CASI will identify and describe sustainable innovation cases through a collaborative analytical process (mapping). More than 160 innovative practices from around the EU will provide a rich qualitative perspective and will serve as the basis for focused analysis, comparison and contrasting.
Through the process of mapping, practices representing unique social and technological innovations will be considered separately in order to inquire into specific factors of, as well as consequences for, sustainability vis-à-vis social and business-oriented challenges. Key players and stakeholders will also be identified through this process, as well as how they are affected by (or are affecting) policy-making. CASI will provide rich opportunities and various venues for stakeholders to engage in focused debates on sustainable innovation – on the role of innovation for sustainability, on enhancing the understanding of sustainability within the innovation context, as well as on policy developments that will ensure opportunities for continuing innovation in the context of sustainability.
Actions are planned to keep track of national and EU-level policy debates on innovation and sustainability. These efforts will supplement the mapping processes of innovation cases. It will further provide grounds for comparison between opportunities of innovation adoption and trends in policy making, as well as of the balances between the two.
Based on the combination of the different analytic approaches, CASI will develop a Common Framework for Assessment and Management of Sustainable Innovation (CFAMSI), and will test its application on issues of sustainability through cases of social and technological innovation, and additional in-depth qualitative research of relevant actors, policy and business models, and societal responses.
CASI emphasises dialogue and participation, and relies on highly participatory methods of engagement when it comes to integrating citizens’ inputs. Based on such input and results from CASI’s internal analyses, EU-wide policy recommendations will be elaborated with the ambition to improve the integration of sustainability and innovation support actions into addressing the underlying issues embedded into the “Climate action, resource efficiency and raw materials” grand challenge.