• Prof. Dr. Maria Leptin, President, European Research Council
• Prof. Dr. Begüm Demir, Professor at the Institute of Computer Engineering and Microelectronics at Technische Universität Berlin
• Dr. Vinciane Gaillard, Deputy Director for Research and Innovation, European University Association
• Prof. Dr. Martin Rolfs, Department of Psychology, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin

---

…I think citizen engagement is essential and important and desirable...

…like I say, there's very little the citizen can do to help discover the black hole. Or if a mathematician, sits in his office and proves the Fermat's theorem. I doubt many citizens would even want to be involved, never mind being able… So, yes, there are huge differences…

…I think we have to distinguish at what levels citizens should be involved. So I would look at three: There's the understanding research …It's not the results that have to be understood, it's how we get to them … The most important thing to understand is the uncertainty in research. Participating is another and there are again levels: as patients, as subject of social sciences studies or as contributors of data. …

And then the final one, which is really for me difficult, is deciding. … We live, most of us in representative democracies where we delegate the power to decide - and citizens have delegated the power to decide on research programs to our governments and the ministries and the EU. And I think that is largely correct….. it requires expert knowledge to make good decisions. …

---

…and we are strongly working together with space agencies in Europe and in particular European Space Agency. So it is very, very valuable for us to observe their problems and then to work towards, research towards solving their problems for the analyzes of the data. …

…what is very impressive for me is to see how they value our research outputs because they also believe in the power of research and scientific studies to move on to solve their problem. So it's great to see their support for that…

---

…There's also, I think, a main role for me as a psychologist, in teaching…when we have students, we reach out to them. This is probably the last time they have some natural science intersection before they go to patients and treat patients. And that's a very different task. But they do need kind of a basic science understanding to do that...

…there's all kinds of things that are connected to society in some way, but none of these things, and I think that's the main point, is really coming from me. It's all coming from somewhere else. By exposing my research to the community, people get interested… But it's not because, you know, I plan to do that and I have an objective to solve a problem. The problem comes from somewhere else. …

---

…Because what we are talking about here, its impact. What is impact? So we have a sense that the way it is phrased and understood is too much geared towards commercial impact, technological impact. Let's not forget about societal impact, socio economic impact and the impact - and you mentioned it - through teaching … it's all part of a of a of a circular loop. You don't have good, high quality research-based teaching for the next generations if you don't have good research. …

…you mentioned, although in your research you had not planned on going to certain categories of end users, they come to you directly because they see the value …what I think is a good way to just drive this, is to get this community and the exchange between the different communities [going], - science cafes, going to the radio, the media, doing a podcast, publishing your publications in open access…

---

…The other aspect is about shared decision making. So we all think in the pyramid, most of the people are at the bottom and don't want to be engaged in research. In research, many people are serving as a kind of token. And the higher you get into the pyramid, the more engaged they are. And well, at the top, there's the driver's seat. And there have been good examples of patient-driven research resulting in that and with the patient organization in the lead….

---

…I just wanted to ask a question to Vinciane, but also maybe the other panelists to maybe take that one step further: Once you get into discussions on impact, I think we also have to accept that that is to a large extent out of the hands of researchers. They can work towards impact, but it is out of their hands what actually happens and very often it might also not be apparent or not immediately apparent, it might be decades later that the impact is only apparent. So I would want to hear, I think, especially in the Research Assessment Transformation Initiative, what is the thinking to acknowledge this, basically…

---

…When it comes to the expert decisions, I think then it just makes no sense. I can't even contribute to the discussions that are going on when I sit in some evaluation panels outside my own field…

---

… in the context of ERC specifically… researchers should lead. They should decide to set the agenda for research, this is what ERCs do, … what they think is relevant in terms of the engagement that their research will have with citizens, with users and so on. What I think is important, is to make them aware…is that: it is over this idea that researchers work in isolation. They are part of research teams and in a research team, although you may be the PI applying for a grant, there are people around you who can help and support you in addressing the right people who will see an impact in your research. So that, I think is important to incentivize. It doesn't change anything to the academic freedom at individual level, the researcher’s freedom, but it helps them connecting, making the connection with what is important for society…

…if you put all this together and if you connect the right people with the researchers - and that is back to the research teams - then you get something that does not infringe …the researcher’s freedom, but at the same time helps improving the impact for society at large. …

---

… So, we have no influence on how much impact our research will have. But I think what can be done is holding scientists at least accountable for securing, making sure that it can have impact: … to document their findings, to expose them to the public, to share the data, all these things that we can tick off… But at the time when we collect data and, you know, ask questions, we have no idea where this is going and usually it never goes where we think it goes. And, you know, this is, I guess, the false promise. If you promise impact, you know, that's, that's not going to work. …

…This is not how research works, at least not fundamental science, that you cannot set an objective and then pursue it. You can pursue it, but you will find other things that will become more interesting over time and maybe never meet your objective. …. And so, yeah, evaluating impact is not going to be a good idea in general. Of course, you know, past performance is a good predictor of future performance. But in terms of impact, that's probably mediated by other things …

---

…I also would like to highlight this value of open access, not in terms of data only, but also the software. …

…and then I think - I'm an educator and give talks… also to policymakers, to space agencies, companies and so on, … I do my best to gain their trust, and then the rest comes. So this creates the impacts in our field. …

---

… We need diversity in the systems. And so the first thing I want to stress here … is diversity in the funding systems, which include systems that fund translational innovation, etc.. …

…I think it's been quite fun that we've seen here, actually diversity of the interpretation of terms: "stakeholder"…

We've also seen diversity in impact… even in the in subjects that have little tangible current impact or may only have it in ten years. The people that are trained in these projects, that's huge impact for society. …

…and finally, I think we should not underestimate the functioning of our democratic system…

---