The Nord-Est is working – with the iNEST project – to promote a sustainable, fair, innovative and more resilient macroregional area. For doing this, we need a strong research, education and innovation foundation, grounded on scientific excellence and competitive innovation policies for citizens and businesses. Our future prosperity and well-being will largely depend on it. In this view, a more active citizens and societal role and engagement is absolutely strategic.
The engagement of citizens, local community and civil society is at the core of the new ERA as well as of all recent communications and strategies of the European Commission. The society must be directly involved, not only at a level of information and communication but also in a phase of planning and realization; citizens are called to co-design, co-implement and co-evaluate all programs. Many are in fact the benefits from citizens involvement, mainly to raise awareness of the importance and impact of research and innovation in people’s daily lives and to increase trust in science. The covid experience has taught us the importance of communicating in a clever and inclusive way.