Considering expert takeovers in citizen involvement processes

While citizen involvement has become an increasingly accepted and popular procedure in both the theory and practice of responsible research and innovation (RRI), there remains a curious dilemma in that the accomplishment of involvement does not necessarily ensure sought responsibility towards citizens. Instead, experts may easily take over the process of involvement and change the outcomes in quite distinct directions, as is empirically shown in this article, while still claiming to draw legitimacy from citizens. To counteract such unwanted takeovers, citizen contributions should be considered as a point of reference throughout the subsequent activities resulting from the involvement. Alternatively, the citizen contributions should simply be used as they were articulated without any significant expert translation. The article draws on empirical insights from an extensive case study in which citizens in 12 European countries articulated visions on sustainable futures, which experts then formulated to priorities for the European Union's Horizon 2020 framework programme for research and innovation.Peer reviewe

Forward-looking network analysis of ongoing sustainability transitions

Experimentation with novel technologies mobilises resources and constructs expectations for systemic transition, yet there is limited research that examines large numbers of energy experiments. Our approach explores an idea of a patchwork of niches and contributes to transitions literature by looking beyond individual experiments. The analysis in this article identifies four clusters of sustainable energy networks (i.e. patchworks of niches), highlighting the roles of urban prosumption, rural production, small towns as integrators, and electric transport in the technological change in the Finnish energy system. The recognition of interconnections between technologies, settings and uses envisages the future scope of patchworks of regimes, and thereby provides an empirically founded, forward-looking knowledge base for political planning and development of social learning. The network analysis of the experiments was executed using Gephi visualisation and exploration software with a specific focus on energy technologies, energy sources, sites, forms of energy use and locality. A large Finnish database on sustainable energy experiments was used to identify and network connections between the core characteristics of such experiments.Peer reviewe

Citizen visions for European futures-methodological considerations and implications

Peer reviewe

Seeking Novelty through Network Analysis of Digital Consumer Creativity

Peer reviewe

Consumer perspectives on arranging circular economy in Finland

The article identifies consumer perspectives related to the activities that facilitate circular economy transitions across major consumption domains. Building on insights from surveys on the circular economy, we review consumer perspectives in the key consumption domains of food, housing, and transport, as well as consumer electronics. Our focus is on the responsibility for organizing the reuse of products and services, the preferred procedures for extending the lifespan of products and services, and the ways to acquire products and services. Analyzing responses from a representative survey of the population in Finland in 2018 (n=1555), we argue that consumers’ perspectives vary significantly across the domains examined. The responsibility for reuse is attributed mainly to consumers themselves, particularly in housing and consumer electronics. Personal activities are also highlighted in the extension of product and service lifespans in the domains of consumer electronics and transportation. As for acquisitions, the respondents overwhelmingly favored ownership over services or sharing. Further, statistically significant differences due to gender, age, education, income level, and household size were observed. The results indicate that domain-specific strategies to promote circularity that consider consumers’ backgrounds are likely to attract a better response from consumers than an all-encompassing approach.Peer reviewe

Governmental electronic services for companies in the Nordic countries : trade and industry sector ad hoc working group for electronic commerce and trade and industry related IT issues

Pohjoismaiset yritykset ja viranomaiset ovat edelläkävijöitä informaatio- ja viestintäteknologian hyödyntämisessä. Valtiollisten sähköisten palvelujen kehittäminen tehostaa valtion ja yritysten toimintaa. Valtiollisten sähköisten palvelujen kehittäminen on sekä valtion että yritysten edun mukaista. Tehostamisen ohessa voidaan parantaa myös palvelujen laatua. Käytännön toimenpiteillä on tärkeä merkitys yritysten hallinnollisen kuormituksen vähentämisessä. Tässä tulee suosia yksinkertaistettuja ja standardoituja menetelmiä. Raportin esimerkkikokoelmasta käy ilmi pohjoismaisille yrityksille tarjolla olevia valtiollisia sähköisiä palveluja. Raportti on internetissä osoitteissa www.norden.org ja www.ncrc.fi

Statliga elektroniska tjänster till företag i Norden : näringsektorns ad hoc arbetsgrupp för elektronisk handel och näringsrelaterade IT-frågor

Pohjoismaiset yritykset ja viranomaiset ovat edelläkävijöitä informaatio- ja viestintäteknologian hyödyntämisessä. Valtiollisten sähköisten palvelujen kehittäminen tehostaa valtion ja yritysten toimintaa. Valtiollisten sähköisten palvelujen kehittäminen on sekä valtion että yritysten edun mukaista. Tehostamisen ohessa voidaan parantaa myös palvelujen laatua. Käytännön toimenpiteillä on tärkeä merkitys yritysten hallinnollisen kuormituksen vähentämisessä. Tässä tulee suosia yksinkertaistettuja ja standardoituja menetelmiä. Raportin esimerkkikokoelmasta käy ilmi pohjoismaisille yrityksille tarjolla olevia valtiollisia sähköisiä palveluja. Raportti on Internetissä osoitteissa www.norden.org ja www.ncrc.fi

Sustainable Futures : Comparing Methodologies for Analyzing Citizen Visions in Europe

There are increasing calls for engaging citizens in the development of future outlooks. At the same time, large‐scale public engagement activities warrant appropriate methods for analyzing their outcomes. This paper reviews how topic modeling could provide such a methodology, which both accounts for all textual data collected in public engagement activities, however large in scope, yet also allows for meaningful topical analysis. It compares topic modeling results concerning a corpus of 179 citizen visions from 30 European countries on desirable and sustainable futures to those acquired through deliberative analysis. While both methodologies contend that European citizens’ outlook consists of education, sustainability in the economy, health concerns, and fairness in communities, and the particular strengths of topic modeling relate to its documentability, repeatability, cost efficiency, and scalability. Topic modeling can also be considered to support public engagement analytically from the perspective of knowledge formation rather than that of common sense.Peer reviewe