New Regional Forum for Research and Innovation: the recruitment of 10 experts gets underway

The countdown has started for recruitment of 10 new experts who will make up the new Regional Forum for Research and Innovation, the body set up by Regione Lombardia to support it in the management of all R&I topics, starting from the impact on the society and the territory.

At its meeting of 31 January, in fact, the Regional Council approved the “Call for collection of applications for the establishment of the Regional Forum for Research and Innovation”, on a proposal by the Councillor for Education, Universities, Research, Innovation and Simplification, Fabrizio Sala.

The open public and international recruitment procedure will allow collecting applications for the Forum, which will be examined by a Technical Evaluation Committee made up of five experts on topics regarding regional research and innovation policies.

The Call will be open from 1 to 31 March 2022, and will also be publicised on international journals.

Each recruited expert will receive an annual gross remuneration of 30 thousand Euros and will remain in office for three years.

The first Forum

The “Regional Forum for Research and Innovation”, one of the instruments under Law 29/2016 “Lombardia è Ricerca e Innovazione” (Lombardy is Research and Innovation), was established in 2017 and implemented with the first ten experts in 2018.

It was led by Professor Mario Calderini, Director of the Alta Scuola Politecnica and of the Tiresia Centre for Innovation and Finance for Social Impact at the Polytechnic University of Milan, and with the participation of scholars from the UK, USA, Belgium, France and Italy.

The Call for the New Forum

The Call from Regione Lombardia, that will open on 1 March, requires that the Forum members are selected among international experts, identified in the field of scientific as well as social disciplines and humanities, to support the activities of Regione Lombardia by following the criteria of independence, neutrality, impartiality, under conditions of confidentiality and transparency.

The 10 Forum experts will meet at least four times a year - also online - and will have advisory, propositional and informative functions.

The Regional Forum for Research and Innovation, in fact, is required to keep Regione Lombardia up to date on the latest frontiers of research and innovation, to involve citizens in the assessment of the possible social consequences of certain technologies, to provide specific guidelines to the Regional Council for drafting policy documents and for managing the policies concerning all fields related to research, innovation and technology transfer.

For their recruitment, in addition to the qualifications, “qualifying profiles with proven experience” will be required, from areas related to the macro-field of the relationship between technoscience and society, such as:

RRI, Responsible Research and Innovation; STS, Science and Technologies Studies; Public Communication of Science; Participative and deliberative methods; Public Engagement; Social innovation; Social impact and social impact assessment; Sociology of Risk; Sociology of Science; Technology assessment and governance; Open Innovation; Open science; Open Data; Data Ethics; Bioethics; Education; Law Applied to New Technologies; Sustainable Development; Technology Transfer.

The Forum activities provided for in the Call

The Call specifies the tasks of the regional body with advisory, propositional and informative functions.

In particular, the Forum:

• feeds public debate on the social impact of technological and scientific advances and discussion between civil society, scientific community, players in the regional research and innovation system, including clusters, technology parks and scientific institutes for research, hospitalisation and health care;
• produces opinions and proposals to the Regional Council and the Regional Executive for the drafting of the three-year strategic programme for research, innovation and technology transfer;
• provides the Regional Executive with useful guidelines for defining intervention criteria, priorities and strategies;
• indicates methods of public participation, to involve citizens in technological progress and innovation phenomena that may have a major impact on the society and the economy;
• monitors changes in the perception and opinion of the society with respect to technical and scientific topics and informs the institution of the outcome of these assessments;
• monitors security compliance of digital and critical infrastructures, and produces proposals and guidelines for digital security management and governance policies;
• discusses with national and international institutions for research and innovation;
• contributes to the dissemination of research results to the economic activities.

The complete notice can be consulted at:

www.openinnovation.regione.lombardia.it/en/ri-in-lombardy/regional-forum/2022-edition