27% of research projects involve civil society organisations

The results of an FP7 research project investigating the involvement of civil society organisations (CSOs) have been revealed at a major conference in Brussels this week.

The Civil Society Organisations in Designing Research Governance (CONSIDER) project was led by the UK’s De Montfort University and focused on issues related to integrating CSOs into collaborative research projects, especially EU-funded multi-stakeholder projects in FP7 and Horizon 2020. The results were presented at the ‘Civil Society in Research and Innovation’ event hosted by CONSIDER and the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC).

Research found that only 27% of collaborative EU research projects involve CSOs and that CSO involvement works best in European projects when CSOs play a central role within the project, acting as a link between the research project on one hand and a part of society on the other. The CONSIDER project also carried out conceptually sound and empirically rich research, and has established a model for CSO participation in research. The project assessed current collaborative practices, observing different research teams in real time and funds.

In a press release, the EESC said: “Including CSOs in research can offer many benefits, including higher acceptance of research outcomes and better quality of research findings. At present, CSO participations remain limited.”

The EESC added that CSO participation is not the “one best way” to do research – it is useful in some settings but not in others. The committee added that not all research projects would benefit from civil society involvement, and it may sometimes prove counter-productive. For it to work there must be an identifiable need for links with society at large, the committee said.

The CONSIDER project ran from 2012-2015 and received a grant worth nearly €1.5m from the European Commission.