[Re]searching for the public Public experimentation with institutional entrepreneurial collectives to open up the research and innovation system from within

Our society currently confronts complex public problems around food, water, mobility, health, energy and climate. Many policymakers hope that research and innovation will provide answers to these grand challenges. In recent decades, some researchers have noted that research and innovation can deliver responsible solutions only if they engage democratically with the values, needs and expectations of diverse emergent groups of affected citizens (publics). Some scholars have also started to experiment with public participation in research and innovation, but many experiments remain of a temporary nature. Until now, it is unclear how such add-on and ad hoc experimentation can inform structural changes that contribute to a deeper democratization of the research and innovation system.
This thesis addresses this puzzle from a conceptual and action-oriented perspective. Building on insights from pragmatism and new institutionalism it develops a framework and agenda for (action) research into the organization of collectives of institutional entrepreneurs (‘institutional entrepreneurial collectives’). The framework is used to analyze experiences with organizing a series of social labs that promoted Responsible Research and Innovation in the European science funding system. Analysis of these experiments with help of the framework helped to uncover how institutions of research and innovation can block and potentially enable participation. Furthermore, the thesis shows that public experimentation can support engaged participants to operate as collectives of institutional entrepreneurs. With enough attention to the structural context of the experiment and with support from methods that enhance a sense of agency, participants can thus create diverse pathways toward structural change. The thesis concludes with policy recommendations and practical pointers for future public experimentation that may help to further promote structural participation in the European research and innovation system.