Policy experimentation in research and innovation

Policy Experimentation is a new project launched by the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation in order to provide key results to further inform and embed policy experimentation into EU research and innovation policy-making. Lessons from it will be instrumental to guide and inform the inclusion of more experimentation actions funded by the framework programme currently and in the future.

To promote the use of policy experimentation in research and innovation policy, the project will follow a multifaceted approach

• Lessons from experimentation for a more impactful future, which will capitalise on  evidence of enablers and barriers to experimentation.
• Supporting policy with experimental evidence through application of policy experimentation methods within the scope of EU Missions to shed light on how to best ensure goals implementation through citizen engagement actions. The experiments will be conducted in partnership with key stakeholders for 2 specific EU Missions:
  • 100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030
  • A Soil Deal for Europe: 100 living labs and lighthouses to lead the transition

• Promotion of experimentation across Europe by raising awareness and building capacity through information campaigns and a training module for EU Commission policy officers, EU countries and other stakeholders.

A consortium led by Nesta together with the Barcelona School of Economics (BSE) will carry out the project activities. The project will be led by two of their centres, the Innovation Growth Lab (IGL), at Nesta and BSE, and the Centre for Collective Intelligence Design (CCID) at Nesta.

The experimental approach allows testing new policies on a small scale, measuring the impact and learning what works best, to then scale up the most successful solutions.

Through policy experimentation, policymakers are able to test new ideas while building credible evidence of what works, what does not work and why.

Experiments are intentionally set up to learn, so they have a clearly structured learning strategy, defined ex-ante rather than as an after-thought, and can be used to address different types of questions using randomised controlled trials.

This approach has not been widely applied in research and innovation policy, hindering efforts to further improve Europe’s research and innovation performance.

To be more impactful, these policy actions would benefit from a wider deployment of policy experimentation across EU research and innovation policy and via the actions and instruments funded through it.

This project is set out to invert the trend and ensure that research and innovation policy across the EU is guided by rigorous evidence.

Citizen engagement is a crucial component of the EU Missions since it brings people together around shared objectives and allows them to influence policy.

While many citizen engagement actions have been and are currently implemented under each EU Mission, little is known about how to effectively promote, increase and catalyse citizens’ engagement and participation.

Adopting an experimental approach can help shed light on the effectiveness of alternative citizen engagement actions.

The project will provide practical application of policy experimentation methods to shed light on how to best ensure citizen engagement in EU Missions, by

• Conducting a survey to elicit citizens’ preferences concerning how to be engaged in the implementation of the EU Missions’ objectives.
• Setting up policy experiments to test promising interventions to increase citizens’ engagement in EU Missions.

In order to better understand citizens’ motivation and interest in EU Missions and citizen participation, the project launched a multi-country survey involving more than 4.500 respondents in France, Finland, Italy, Ireland, Poland, and Romania. The survey studied citizens' awareness of the challenges addressed by the five EU missions and their willingness to participate in citizen engagement (CE) activities aimed at addressing these challenges.

The recently published results provide relevant insights for designers and implementers of citizen’s engagement activities in public and social challenges, with a particular relevance for all actors working on the EU Missions. The survey data will also be leveraged by this project to inform the design of the citizens’ engagement experiments with the EU Mission City and Soil. To get more information about the results and lessons learned from the survey, download the full Policy Brief here.