The King Baudouin Foundation successfully led an EU-funded project called "Meeting of Minds" which aimed to foster greater involvement of citizens in defining priorities for brain research.
Run by 12 different organisations, the 2-year pilot project "Meeting of Minds" gave the opportunity to ordinary citizens from 9 EU Member States to discuss the impact of brain science on their daily life and express priorities for the neuroscience sphere.
Organised around national and European brainstorms, the project included input from European researchers, academic experts and policy-makers, as well as 126 randomly selected citizens.
The King Baudouin Foundation states that "through this approach, the Meeting of Minds initiative wishes to meet EU calls for greater public involvement in the debate on future research, technological decision-making and governance."
The outcome
The final convention (European meeting of the different citizens) was open to the public and took place in Brussels on 20-22 January 2006.
The final report was handed to EU officials during the closing session of the convention in the European Parliament on 23 January 2006. The six themes discussed by the citizens were
Regulation and control
Normalcy versus Diversity
Public Information and Communication
Pressure from economic interests
Equal access to treatment
Freedom of Choice
In his video message, European Commissioner for Research, Janez Potočnik said that citizen participation was important in this project in two ways. Firstly, it enabled the European Commission and other policymakers to have a better understanding of citizens’ views and secondly, it served to steer European policy in a new inclusive way.
Octavi Quintana Trias from DG Research at the European Commision, outlined how the results of the project would be implemented in the Seventh Framework Programme for Research including:
the creation of the European Research Council which will rely on investigation-driven research rather than research topics being chosen by the Commission;
ensuring equal access to treatment and a European approach for public health though the section "Optimising the delivery of health care to European citizens";
strengthening the role of citizens in policy and regulation through more active participation in Commission procedures eg selection of research projects to be funded
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