PRO-Ethics D2.1 Summary and evaluation on Pilot I results

Throughout the year of 2020, the PRO-Ethics project has enabled the research funding organisations (RFOs) in its consortium to reflect on their so-named Pilot I cases and showcase some of their prior experiences in working with participatory approaches in RFO activities. For this process, four hosting RFOs (FFG, VDI/VDE-IT, RCN and Innoviris) have partnered with four supporting RFOs (CDTI, TAČR, RCL, UEFISCDI) who contributed to a reflection and analysis process with their external and new perspectives. In this first phase of the project the RFOs reflected on their already existing participation processes with different means and from different perspectives, resulting in a diversity of insights. The present report provides insights into the ongoing reflections of the Pilots and provides lessons learnt from the first four cases of phase I. It summarises a variety of experiences which differ from each other and enables a deeper understanding of the difficulty and diversity of participatory processes. Furthermore, it gives insight into the different ways the RFO partners deal with ethical issues and risks. The experiences and lessons learnt from Pilot I summarised in this report will serve as basis for the development of the phase II Pilots, where RFOs design and implement new cases within the aforementioned action fields of participation. DISCLAIMER: The present deliverable has been submitted to the European Commission for review. The information and views set out in this report are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the European Union. Neither the European Union institutions and bodies nor any person acting on their behalf may be held responsible for the use which may be made of the information contained therein