CHERRIES engages ecosystems in South-West Europe (Murcia ES), Northern Europe (Örebro SE) and South-East Europe (Republic of Cyprus CY). The territorial preconditions and development paths are varying. While the size and population of the territories are similar, the administrative, economic, and innovation systems have major differences.
What is the influence of these differences on the capacity of the regions to develop demand-driven health innovations; what are drivers and barriers, and what is the policy mix that supports territorial responsible research and innovation in healthcare?
Based on the mapping guidelines (D2.1), the three territorial ecosystems have been mapped by regional partners under the experienced guidance of CWTS, the Centre for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden University. The mappings scrutinised the central actors in the territorial healthcare systems, their innovation behaviour and capabilities, priorities, needs and observable trends. Further, the policy instruments determining the innovation policy mix were analysed. The methodology builds upon a mixed-method ranging from desk research, expert interviews to bibliometrics indicators and networks.
The European Commission (EC) describes its policy for responsible research and innovation (RRI) as diverse sets of societal actors
(researchers, citizens, policymakers, business, third sector organizations, etc.) that “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 society”. The major mechanism for bringing actors together is public engagement, one of the EC’s six RRI ‘keys’ along with ethics, gender equality, governance, open science,
and science education. The capacity to support territorial health innovations in an engaging and responsible way is central to the experimentation phase in CHERRIES.
The Regional Mapping Reports bring together the main findings from mapping the actors and stakeholders, the policy context, and mapping of context and content in relation to smart specialisation.
Each report comprises an understanding of the specificities of a territory, including the peculiarities of its economic structure, the idiosyncrasies of its institutions, the character of its political culture and policy-mix and its relational connections as well as the status for RRI implementation. These territorial development paths serve a baseline for further interventions (WP3 and WP4) into these systems, and subsequent monitoring (WP6).
