Category: Activities

New Publication: Transformative Mission-Oriented Innovation Policies

Part of the EU-SPRI Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Series

We are pleased to announce the forthcoming publication of Transformative Mission-Oriented Innovation Policies: Revisiting the Role of Science, Technology and Innovation in Society, edited by Jakob Edler, Mireille Matt, Wolfgang Polt, and Matthias Weber.

This volume, to be published in May 2025 by Edward Elgar, explores the conceptual foundations and empirical applications of mission-oriented innovation policy. It addresses the pressing need for science, technology, and innovation (STI) policies capable of enabling large-scale transformations in response to societal challenges such as climate change, public health, and energy transitions.

Through in-depth case studies and critical analysis from across Europe and beyond, the book investigates how mission-oriented policies are designed, implemented, and evaluated. It offers practical insights into the prerequisites for success and the obstacles that policy makers must navigate.

This book is essential reading for scholars and policy makers engaged in the design of transformative innovation policies and those seeking to better understand the evolving role of STI in shaping future societies.

Publication Details
Transformative Mission-Oriented Innovation Policies
Editors: Jakob Edler, Mireille Matt, Wolfgang Polt, Matthias Weber
EU-SPRI Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation Policy series
Edward Elgar Publishing, May 2025
ISBN: 978 1 80392 951 4
c. 426 pages

Transformative Mission-Oriented Innovation Policies

About the EU-SPRI Book Series

EU-SPRI Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Series
Published by Edward Elgar

The EU-SPRI Forum book series presents cutting-edge research emerging from the community of scholars and policy practitioners working on science, technology, and innovation policy. Edited by leading experts in the field, the series addresses a wide range of pressing topics related to the governance of innovation systems and the evolving role of STI policy in society.

Books in the series typically explore questions such as:

How can science and innovation policy address 21st-century grand societal challenges?
What approaches support the coordination of STI policy with other domains, such as energy, health, climate, or transport?
How can innovation policy instruments promote economic competitiveness while ensuring social responsibility?
What are the mechanisms for making public sector research more effective and aligned with societal needs?

This series is an intellectual home for interdisciplinary perspectives that contribute to both scholarly debates and practical policy development. The EU-SPRI series is especially focused on emerging paradigms such as mission-oriented innovation, responsible innovation, and systems transformation.

By promoting work that bridges theory and practice, the series serves as a vital resource for researchers, students, and policy professionals shaping the future of STI policy.

Eu-SPRI Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation Policy series – Innovation and Technology – Book Series

Early Career Event, Dortmund, 10th June

Early Career Event

Shaping Societal Futures as a Career Path? Between academia and social impact

As knowledge producers, scientists play a central role in shaping societal futures. As current times are characterised by a plethora of societal challenges and crises, ranging from climate change to demographic changes, accompanied by profound technological change, such as the rapid spread of AI, the roles of researchers are also in flux. Especially relevant in this regard is also the question of (social) responsibility and objectivity of science. Although scientists – and consequently their scientific work – are shaped by personal views as well as the (political and social) environment in which they work, science is expected to be objective in its production of knowledge. Within the context of this year’s Eu-SPRI Early Career Event, we will discuss these questions of responsibilities and tasks of (early career) researchers.

A relevant question for this discussion is: how do you achieve impact with your research? And does striving for societal impact hinder the development of an academic career? These questions touch upon recent debates on quality, and especially on the quality measurement, in academia. To advance an academic career, the focus remains very much on producing high-impact articles, where high-impact is measured by impact factors that merely measure how many other researchers cite your work, but that is near meaningless in the wider societal debates (not in the least because a great number of journal articles is hidden behind a huge paywall). Societal impact, on the other hand, can best be achieved through activities that have not traditionally been highly valued within the academic system but which are increasingly encouraged through transdisciplinary research and a growing importance of universities’ Third Mission.

Transdisciplinary research is seen as particularly suitable to produce knowledge with high societal value and practical, real-world, innovations. However, transdisciplinary research poses challenges for researchers. Firstly, researchers need to perform many different roles and therefore need new skills and competences. Secondly, transdisciplinary research is time consuming, meaning that scientists have to spend large parts of their time getting to know and earn the trust from research participants and project management tasks, rather than with producing scientific publications. As an early career researcher, oftentimes in precarious positions with short-term contracts, it can be either risky or unattractive to engage in this kind of research and teaching. Within the Early Career Event, we will discuss these topics with experienced researchers.

Concept and working methods

The Early Career Event will be kick-off with a welcome address by Prof. Dr. Jürgen Howaldt. Early career researchers will subsequently shortly present their work at the event, focusing on challenges and opportunities for achieving impact. They will be supported by four selected senior researchers (Alejandra Boni, Toni Caro, Christoph Kaletka and Klaus Schuch), with practical experience with transdisciplinary research and who will share their insights and lessons learned. In plenary sessions and group discussions, challenges and opportunities for impactful transdisciplinary research will be addressed and discussed in a constructive environment based on mutual learning.

Participants

Early career researchers will briefly present their work at the event, with a focus on challenges and opportunities for achieving impact. In order to allow for fruitful discussion, the number of participants will be limited to 25 early career researchers.

Practicalities

The early career event will take place in-person on the day before the start of the actual Eu-SPRI conference (June 10^th). It will be hosted by the Social Research Centre of TU Dortmund University (https://sfs.sowi.tu-dortmund.de/). The participant fee for the event is 50€ (including lunch, coffee/tea, dinner and drinks).

Early Career Event	10 June 2025, 09:00 – 17:00
Deadline for applications now closed	30th March 2025
Notification of acceptance	04 April 2025

The motivation statement should be submitted via email to euspri2025.sfs@tu-dortmund.de

EU-SPRI 2025 CONFERENCE, TU Dortmund University in Dortmund, Germany, 11-13 June 2025

The 2025 Eu-SPRI Annual Conference will be hosted by the Social Research Center at TU Dortmund University in Dortmund, Germany, in collaboration with other groups within the university. The main conference will take place on 11 to 13 June 2025, with a preceding Early Career Event on 10 June.

Under the conference theme ‘Shaping Societal Futures with STI Policies’ (more information about the theme can be found here: https://euspri2025.de/)

Exploratory Initiative “Policy Dialogues Demonstrator” presented at Eu-SPRI Forum’s Annual Conference

A screenshot of a PowerPoint presentation

June 7th, 2024

Thanks again to all speakers and participants in our session “How the gap between science and policy could be bridged?” at this year’s Eu-SPRI Forum Annual Conference at University of Twente. Professor Sylvia Schwaag Serger from Lund University, who made her career in both worlds, talked about the skills (young) professionals in academia and policy need. She highlighted communicative capabilities for bridging the differences in the languages used in the academic and policy worlds and an ambition to learn from each other. This mutuality was also emphasized by Tatiana Fernández Sirena from the government of Catalonia, who reported about Catalonia’s experiences with embedded researchers. She underlined that public administration simply cannot change and adopt new competencies needed for policy-making in times of challenges and crises without “engaging” interactions.

As a group of researchers in the field of science, technology and innovation policy, we see a growing number of colleagues being motivated to produce policy-relevant results, and we notice increasing need from policy practitioners to interact with science in order to build up capacities for innovative policy-making in times of grand societal challenges and geopolitical crises. In our session, we discussed two demonstrators, how Eu-SPRI Forum as a network can support science-policy linkages in times of transformation. These demonstrators were developed in an exploratory initiative by a group of colleagues from Fraunhofer ISI (Stephanie Daimer and Liu Shi, coordinator), AIT (Matthias Weber, Lasse Bundgaard), Ingenio (Alejandra Boni and Diana Velasco) and LISIS (Mireille Matt, Renée van Dis) in close collaboration with policy practitioners from Eu-SPRI Forum’s Stakeholder Advisory Board (chaired by Philippe Larrue from OECD).

Circulation report: Studying the Dynamics of Global Value Chain Reconfigurations at MIOIR

Diletta Pegoraro is an Early Career scholar researching the Dynamics of Global Value Chain Reconfigurations at the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering – Politecnico di Milano. She declines this topic in three major disciplines: Innovation, International Business and Economic Geography. During her Eu-SPRI-funded circulation at MIOIR (University of Manchester) she was able to further development the conceptual framework of PLOTTI (Place Leaders Of Twin Transition in the Italian local manufacturing systems, a project PRIN 2022 PNRR Next Generation EU – CUP E53D23016560001).

In this piece of writing she shares her experience and working in a different department and in which way this circulation award helped to enlarge her existing networks and create new collaboration.

In this post I will compare the Early Career Scholar (ECS) to a Sequoia tree and it will explain how the Eu-SPRI-funded circulation helps ECS to foster their immense inner potential for personal and academic growth. Both EC and Sequoia possess a deep-rooted foundation in learning and preparation. As sequoia absorbs knowledge from its environmental and bio-system, ECS actively seeks out experiences and collaborations for expanding knowledge. As the sequoia reaches skyward, its branches intertwine with others, forming a supportive network in where other species can find their home. Similarly, the ECS builds connections with peers and mentors, creating a symbiotic community that fosters collective knowledge and progress. However, only the right combination of environmental factors allows sequoia to become majestic trees, without then, sequoia remain only twigs. It is the same for an ECS, while growth opportunities are many, choosing the right option for the ECS program is crucial, as each option leads to different educational pathways.

As Sequoia needs the right environmental factors for thriving, also ECS needs access to resource and funding. The Eu-SPRI mobility programme is a perfect fit for this goal, as it enable the majestic growth of the ECR.

The visit to MIOIR proved strategically crucial for advancing the conceptual framework I’m developing. This framework will lay the theoretical foundation for a larger project named PLOTTI. My visit coincided with the GEOINNO2024 Conference, organized by MIOIR itself. Before the conference, I invited MIOIR scholars to contribute to my session, where I presented the framework in its early-stage development. Further discussions and valuable feedback continued throughout my visit at MIOIR.

Beyond actively working on the project, I immersed myself in the lively and active department, attending seminars and activities. The pre-seminar coffee meetings provided the perfect opportunity to pitch my research and receive immediate, friendly feedback from esteemed scholars. Of particular importance was the guidance I received from Professor Silvia Massini. Her expertise in innovation diffusion and digital technologies proved invaluable. With her help, I was able to refine the conceptual framework for accelerating the adoption of digital technologies for more sustainable living.

Joining the Eu-SPRI Circulation Programme can help you build a thriving research network by connecting with researchers from diverse institutions and disciplines. The visiting period provides valuable resources like access to research facilities, funding for travel and accommodation, and opportunities to collaborate with leading experts. To maximise your experience, develop a compelling timeline that highlights your research goals and aligns them with the host institution’s expertise. Connect with your tutor early to get feedback on your proposal and discuss research opportunities. Don’t hesitate to explore additional collaborations by scheduling meetings with other researchers at the host institution. Remember, this program isn’t about become the highest sequoia but about laying the basis for allowing a prosperity growth of your branches through collaborations and exchanges.

In conclusion, while separated by species and age, we ECS and the sequoia share a remarkable kinship, both standing tall with the promise of a flourishing future.

ECC Eu-SPRI 2024, Sustainability in Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Policies: Between Complexity and Uncertainty, Rome, March 2024

By Serena Fabrizio and Antonio Zinilli (CNR-IRCrES)

The Eu-SPRI Early Career Researcher Conference (ECC) 2024, entitled “Sustainability in Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Policies: Between Complexity and Uncertainty”, took place in Rome on 6-8 March 2024, at the CNR-IRCrES – the Research Institute for Sustainable Economic Growth of the National Research Council of Italy.

The ECC brought together scholars from different fields to explore the impact of science, technology, and innovation policies on long-term sustainable development and equitable growth. The Conference delved into the complexities and uncertainties surrounding STI policies, intending to uncover potential synergies between these policies and the realization of sustainable goals.

The event began with the opening by the Chair of the Conference Antonio Zinilli, CNR-IRCrES, who spoke about the Eu-SPRI Forum and important European infrastructures in social sciences and economics, such as RISIS (the European Research Infrastructure for Science, technology and Innovation policy Studies). This addition was pertinent given the significant use of this infrastructure in a large part of the conference presentations. The conference proceeded with a stimulating keynote speech by Arash Hajikhani entitled “Tracing the Trajectory: Evolution and Impact of Sustainable Development Activities in Science, Technology, Innovation and Business”.

A session on business and technological innovation, chaired by Lucio Morettini, featured presentations on topics such as innovations in the hospitality sector during the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of digital technologies on business financing. The day ended with a reflective closing session.

The second day began with a session on the dynamics of research funding, chaired by Andrea Orazio Spinello, where discussions focused on patterns of collaboration in the EU Framework Programmes, gender considerations in R&D funding, and the importance of proximity in government-funded research partnerships. Laura Piscicelli’s keynote on “How does a circular economy contribute to sustainability?” set the stage for discussions during a session on Innovation Policy and Sustainability, chaired by Antonio Zinilli. Topics included the relationship between technology and sustainability, income inequalities in innovation, and the geographical aspects of green innovation in Italy. The day concluded with a session on the Positioning of R&D Actors, chaired by Lorenzo Giammei.

On the final day, an Open session moderated by Serena Fabrizio covered topics as diverse as the influence of research evaluation on researchers’ agendas and how social media platforms respond to criticism. Giovanni Cerulli’s keynote on “Data-driven decision making: potential and limitations” offered insights into future directions.

Through insightful keynotes, thought-provoking sessions, and engaging discussions, participants gained effective perspectives on navigating the complexities and uncertainties inherent in shaping sustainable development agendas.

As we bid farewell to ECC 2024, we take with us a renewed commitment to harnessing the power of STI policy to drive positive change and promote inclusive growth. By fostering collaboration across disciplines and sectors, we will be better equipped to address the multiple challenges facing our societies and indicate the way for a more sustainable future.

Thank all participants, organizers, and sponsors for their contributions to the success of ECC Rome 2024.

Towards new types of linkages between science policy researchers, stakeholders and policymakers

Eu-SPRI Stakeholder Advisory Board reflection paper,
January 2024.

Please download the Stakeholder Advisory Board reflection paper here: Eu-SPRI SAB reflection paper January 2024

#AI4STIP 2023: Eu-SPRI ECR school explores the intersections of AI, science, policy, and ethics

By Philipp Baaden, Priscila Ferri, and John P. Nelson

In November 2023, 31 early-career researchers from Europe and elsewhere gathered in Manchester, England, for the week-long Artificial Intelligence for Science, Technology, Innovation and Policy Winter School (#AI4STIP). With Eu-SPRI sponsorship, #AI4STIP brought these researchers together to delve into the intricate interplay of AI, scientific progress, ethical research, and policy shaping. Hosted by the Manchester Institute for Innovation Research (MIOIR), located at the University of Manchester’s Alliance Manchester Business School, the event offered an immersive program on the governance, ethics, scientific implications, and research applications of artificial intelligence.

To capture the collective wisdom and different insights gained during the event, we asked the participants to provide us with feedback on the most important learning they had gained while at #AI4STIP. The breadth of responses mirrored the depth and diversity of the program’s content as well as the diversity of research backgrounds. To synthesize these perspectives, we used a large language model (LLM), which offered the following summary:

“Through the AI4STIP Winter School, I’ve gained an immersive understanding of AI’s multifaceted dimensions, witnessing its potential applications and the tools available, notably large language models. This experience not only expanded my technical prowess but also heightened my awareness of AI’s ethical and societal implications, emphasizing responsible and strategic usage across diverse research domains.”

These reflections are rooted in the expertise shared across three key instructional tracks curated by leaders in the field of AI for science and innovation, showcased at #AI4STIP.

The first track, spearheaded by Philip Shapira (University of Manchester and Georgia Tech) and Justin B. Biddle (Georgia Tech), focused on ethics, societal implications, and emerging global governance structures for AI. These sessions guided attendees on the potential stakes of AI development and implementation. These ranged from job loss to intellectual property disruption to much-discussed extinction threats. The global landscape of AI investment and leadership was considered, along with the effects (or, sometimes, lack thereof) of the proliferation of AI ethics guidelines and relatively slow growth of AI regulation.

In #AI4STIP’s second track, VTT’s Arash Hajikhani and Carolyn Cole provided attendees with examples, instruction, and hands-on practice in applications of LLMs to science and innovation policy research. Attendees learned about the architecture and functioning of LLMs, available commercial and open-source tools for use of LLMs in research, and examples of use of LLMs for large-scale qualitative classification, fuzzy searches and content summaries within documents, and bibliometric trends analysis.

Throughout the week, attendees completed hands-on small-group projects using the ChatGPT API and other commercial LLM research tools to analyze and visualize documentary evidence such as journal articles and reports.

The third track, led by Barbara Ribeiro (SKEMA) and Cornelia Lawson (University of Manchester), shed light on AI’s impacts within scientific realms. Ribeiro highlighted the paradox of automating lab research leading to new “mundane knowledge work” and discussed the differential impact of AI across researchers of different levels of seniority and other demographic groups. Lawson presented on digital technologies’ and AI’s potential effects on scientific team size, collaboration, and institutional advantage, and provided preliminary findings on relationships between AI use, project initiation, and university types (among other variables).

Complementing these tracks were keynote addresses and informal evening “fireside chats” from invited speakers. Laurie Smith presented on Nesta’s experimentation with AI for social good, such as providing chatbot interfaces to support parents in dealing with health problems or designing activities for children. Alistair Nolan (OECD), advocated for adoption of AI in science as a way to increase the productivity of research and suggested policies to facilitate further development and adoption of AI for science. Elle Farrell-Kingsley (AI Curator and Dialogue Writer) provided attendees a look into the ground-level processes by which LLM developers try to make their tools safe, reliable, and comfortable—but not excessively humanlike in presentation. Parsa Ghaffari (Quantexa) offered an industry perspective on the evolution of decision-making applications from natural language processing to generative AI and LLMs. Samuel Kaski (University of Manchester and Alto University) spoke with attendees about his goals, decision-making processes, and treatment of societal consequences as a leading AI researcher.

MIOIR’s Holly Crossley and Chloe Best provided highly effective support in organizing and running the Winter School.

Despite a packed schedule, attendees bonded over meals and explored Manchester, engaging in activities such as visiting Christmas markets, touring the Old Trafford football stadium, and viewing the Manchester Science and Industry Museum.

The AI for Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy Winter School was supported by the European Forum for Studies of Policies for Research and Innovation (Eu-SPRI Forum), the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, and the Alliance Manchester Business School. Additional support for student and faculty travel was provided by the Georgia Tech School of Public Policy and the Ivan Allen College, the Partnership for the Organization of Innovation and New Technologies (Polytechnique Montréal, Canada), and VTT Finland.

Philip Baaden is a PhD student at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and at Fraunhofer INT interested in the evolutionary process of new interdisciplinary scientific fields. Priscila Ferri is a PhD student in science, technology and innovation policy at the MIOIR, University of Manchester, and is examining how AI shapes research and innovation practices in academic laboratories. John P. Nelson is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Public Policy, focusing on ethics and societal implications of AI.

Interview with Eu-SPRI member InnoLab (University of Vaasa)

In autumn 2023 Eu-SPRI was delighted to welcome a new organisation to the network – the InnoLab at the University of Vaasa.

We caught up with Helka Kalliomäki, Associate Professor at the School of Management, University of Vaasa, and member of the InnoLab research platform.

Can you tell us a bit about the InnoLab, its research focus and how you came to join the Eu-SPRI network?

Would be happy to! InnoLab – Innovation and Entrepreneurship research platform – is a phenomenon-based, multidisciplinary open research platform at the University of Vaasa in Finland. We are a young platform, established in 2019, but within a short period of time, we have been successful in creating an authentic network of collaborative partners who represent science, society and industry in a versatile manner, nationally and internationally.

Our research is organised in three thematic clusters: society and systems, transformational innovation, and consumer and user-centric innovation. In these clusters, we aim at capturing innovation activities at all levels. In all areas we have a constantly evolving externally funded project portfolio, which enables us to combine internationally ambitious research with high societal and practical relevance.

Within our university, we are a multidisciplinary group of about 30 researchers, having our disciplinary homes at one of the four schools (management, marketing and communication, accounting and finance, and technology and innovations) and joined together by our interest in innovation and entrepreneurship studies. In addition, doctoral students are a key part of our community and participate actively in our activities, often as project and grant funded researchers. We also continue to host 10-15 international visitors, with whom we collaborate actively in externally funded projects, education initiatives and joined writing projects.

We heard about the Eu-SPRI network few years ago, and immediately noticed that the forum is very relevant for us in terms of our strategic goals and research areas. After participating to our first Eu-SPRI conference in 2021, we started exploring the network more closely and decided to pursue the membership.

How is the work of the Innolab relevant to the Eu-SPRI? What opportunities are you hoping will open up due to Vaasa joining the Eu-SPRI network?

Our core research areas are directly related to the focus areas of the Eu-SPRI, and we of course hope that our membership will be mutually beneficial for both us and the Eu-SPRI network members. Our ambition is to become internationally recognized for our research in the broad area of transformational innovation, and we believe our work on innovation systems and eco-social transitions to deliver sustainable transformation through public policy will set us apart from other institutions. Related to our ambition, we wanted to join the Eu-SPRI network to become an active member of this interdisciplinary science and innovation policy studies community in Europe. We believe that we have a lot to offer for the network through our versatile international workshops and events, as well as our expertise in transformational innovation. In the future, we increasingly wish to join forces with European colleagues in research topics of joined interest, hopefully leading to new collaborations also in EU funding bids.

Great opportunities for our young researchers was also one of the main reasons for us to pursue this network membership. In an internationally recognised research university it is necessary that our doctoral researchers and early-career scholars can build their capacities and networks in an international research environment and learn from the best. We believe that the membership opens many doors for that.

How do you hope to participate in the agenda of Eu-SPRI?

We want to be part of building the SPRI research agenda in the forthcoming years. We look forward to working with our colleagues across Europe on strengthening this important research area through joint research initiatives and events, also related to supporting the next generation of scholars. In addition, I am personally very interested in studying and developing new forms of dialogue and interaction between researchers and policy practitioners, so I am also excited about the stakeholder engagement mission of the network and wish to contribute to that in the future. We have good models in Finland that I believe are worth spreading and developing further in collaborative European arenas!

Which activities are you planning to engage in and what kind of events would you hope to organise (on your own or with other partner organisations)?

The first thing on our to do list this autumn was to submit a track proposal to next summer’s Eu-SPRI conference, which we just did together with our VTT colleagues from Finland. The proposal is related to inclusion as an innovation policy objective, which we have been exploring in several research and development projects recently. After this, we plan to contact Eu-SPRI colleagues concerning summer school organising next year. Next, I believe, we should also start planning for hosting the annual conference some time soon!

Finally, where do you see STI research headed in the coming decade and what are the most pressing challenges the field is looking to address? How do you see InnoLab in collaboration with the Eu-SPRI network address these challenges?

Obviously societal transitions and ways of successfully implementing transformative and mission-oriented approaches to STI policy require a lot of attention from our research community in the forthcoming years. InnoLab will participate to those efforts with our ongoing and future research projects, hopefully increasingly in collaboration with our Eu-SPRI colleagues. Currently, for example, we are studying mission-oriented innovation policy and its connections to systems of use, exploring ways to build connections between top-down agenda setting and bottom-up agency. Altogether, the versatile expertise of InnoLab members in the area of transformational innovation is very well connected to the key topics of the Eu-SPRI network, offering a good basis for collaboratively addressing key challenges together with Eu-SPRI colleagues.

Eu-SPRI 2023 Annual Conference at SPRU, University of Sussex

This blog originally appeared on SPRU’s website and has been reproduced with the permission of the authors.

On Wednesday 14 – Friday 16 June 2023, the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) based at the University of Sussex Business School, proudly hosted the European Forum for Studies of Policies for Research and Innovation Conference (Eu-SPRI 2023). Eu-SPRI’s annual conference is the European event for scholars and policymakers in the fields of science, technology, and innovation (STI) policy, providing a dynamic platform for exchanging ideas, presenting emerging research, and fostering valuable networks.

Supporting the development of early career researchers in this field is a key part of the Eu-SPRI Forum’s work. Prior to the conference on Tuesday 13 June, SPRU hosted the Eu-SPRI Early Career Researcher event in association with the 29th SPRU PhD Forum. Welcoming participants from a diverse range of institutions, this event provided a supportive space for early career researchers to present and discuss their work, hear talks from guest speakers and network in a friendly environment, before continuing to the main conference.

Research with Impact

The conference’s first day began with an opening ceremony chaired by Michael Hopkins, the Chair of the conference’s organising committee, with welcome addresses by SPRU’s director, Jeremy Hall and Eu-SPRI’s president, Emanuela Reale.

The theme of this year’s conference, ‘Research with Impact’, reflects the increasing focus within STI policy globally on ensuring that researchers engage with wider stakeholders to deliver positive economic impact and address societal challenges. This reflects the growing societal expectations placed on research and innovation, and increased concerns about how well research systems are aligned with the changing needs of society. Demand for research with impact has generated changes in how research is funded, evaluated, organised and disseminated. Eu-SPRI 2023 was a platform for the exploration of these questions amongst international colleagues.

The conference featured 25 Tracks and five Special Sessions organised by scholars in the field, capturing the latest developments in a broad range of science policy related areas. Participants discussed topics such as transformative innovation, sustainability transitions, policy implications and transdisciplinary research.

The first day of the conference featured a captivating keynote speech by Professor Kathryn Oliver from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London, entitled ‘Feet on the ground and head in the clouds: can we be both pragmatic and ambitious for research with impact?’.

Members of the Eu-SPRI Stakeholder Advisory Board: Philippe Larrue, Christian Naczinsky, and Tatiana Fernandez Sirera, with the participation of Emanuela Reale and Stephanie Daimer, hosted a keynote panel on Day Two, exploring how to promote dialogue with policymakers for the design and implementation of science and innovation policies. The panel, sponsored by RISIS, incorporated open debate and examined the emerging needs and forthcoming actions in this area.

The third and final day of the conference saw an engaging keynote debate addressing the motion that ‘The growing use of evaluation and analysis of impact has gone too far so that it is now damaging research’. The debate speakers were Ben Martin, Professor of Science & Technology Policy Studies at SPRU, and Leonie van Drooge, Owner of LvD Impact & Evaluation, with the debate chaired by Paul Nightingale, SPRU.

In addition to the varied academic programme, an exciting selection of social activities were available to attendees, adding a touch of excitement and relaxation to the event. On the first day, participants could take flight on the iconic Brighton i360, a breath-taking observation tower offering panoramic views above Brighton seafront, featuring a sky bar. The Brighton i360 social was kindly sponsored by the Technopolis Group. Alternatively, guests could enjoy drinks and nibbles at the Ohso Social Bar, a popular beach bar within the heart of Brighton’s vibrant atmosphere, kindly sponsored by RISIS.

Day Two saw delegates attend a Gala dinner at the DoubleTree Hilton Metropole, for a memorable evening of mingling and discussion. The conference’s final day closed with farewell drinks at the Grand Central pub in the city centre, featuring live music that had the audience on their feet, singing along.

Hosting the Eu-SPRI 2023 Conference was an honour for SPRU and the Business School. It was fantastic to welcome so many colleagues to our campus for the largest Eu-SPRI conference yet, and we hope that all participants enjoyed their experience with us!

Congratulations to all dedicated Sussex staff for producing such a successful, well-attended event, with special thanks to the academic organising committee: Professor Michael Hopkins, Professor Paul Nightingale, Dr Adrian Ely, Dr Katherine Lovell, Professor Adrian Smith, Dr Bipashyee Ghosh, Dr Chux Daniels, Dr David Eggleton, Dr Joshua Moon, Dr Matias Ramirez, and Dr Xiangming Tao.

We would also like to express our gratitude once again to our sponsors for their generous support and contribution to the #EuSPRI23 Conference – our sincere thanks to RISIS, Technopolis Group, Edward Elgar Publishing, and Policy@Sussex.

The Eu-SPRI 2024 Conference will be hosted by the University of Twente in the Netherlands with the theme ‘Governing Technology, Research, and Innovation for Better Worlds’. We look forward to another inspiring gathering of the Eu-SPRI community.