Lessons Learned from France MML workshops

Milestone 1

Realize a complete inventory of local skills needed for the topic of academic actors, start-ups or companies already established in the region;
Make lists of actions and players, record skills, know-how and economic potential, identify best practices and make full use of them to put the chosen topic on the national agenda;
Start a survey to establish the relationship between local communities and the coastal areas and share results with politicians to put marine biotechnologies on the national agenda as an economic and sustainable opportunity.

Milestone 2

Use keynote speakers to introduce the topic for example specialists, but their speech must be in simple language and avoid using difficult terminology;
Define the date, finalise the workshop topic and have communication material two months ahead.

Milestone 3

Ensure a good representation of professionals (industry related to the topic, policy makers, journalists) to have a balanced dialogue;
Explain at the start of the workshop the different phases that participants will go through;
Assign participants to a specific table according to gender, type of organization/institution, type of expertise in the field, main interest in general to ensure multidisciplinarity;
Multiply events where researchers from academia and industry exchange with a broader community to enhance this community and its visibility;
Ensure that participants can exchange knowledge and meet new people;
Connect all stakeholders through education and communication;
Recruit participants by telephone to ensure a great effectiveness of recruitment;
Workshops may participants convince about RRI, but doesn't tend to help them in the concrete application of RRI in their daily work;
The education of young people and the use of exchange programs between schools will lead to active citizenship respectful of the environment;
Plan well the participant groups so that all stakeholders are sufficiently represented;
Promote the workshop through websites and a poster campaigns.

Milestone 4

Ensure that all voices have an equal footing in the debate during the workshop;
Make an inventory of innovations and tools, and facilitate collaboration and networking for the development of biotechnologies in France;
Focus on the concept and its tools when explaining RRI to participants;
Give participants more time to contribute to the ideas at other tables;
Enable each group to take the floor to present their results;
The absence of gender equality reveals a critical gap in access to opportunities and resources and decision-making power for women and men;
Plan well the workshop so that participants provide their ideas in an active way.

Milestone 5

Open access, i.e. giving free online access to the results of publicly-funded research data will boost innovation and increase the use of scientific results by all societal actors;
Allocate a good part of the workshop for creating a clear common action plan.

Milestone 6

Milestone 7

Milestone 8

See also...