Cultural Particularities and Its Role in the “Innovation Divide”: A Closer Look at the Origins of “Spreading Excellence and Widening Participation”

Abstract

The “innovation divide” has been a common and persistent problem since the onset of Framework Programmes for Research and Innovation. Especially, for the group of countries that joined the European Union after 2004. Several initiatives have been implemented by the Union for encouraging the participation of these countries in these collaborative programmes, trying to maximize and extend the benefits of a knowledge economy across the EU. In this chapter, we explore how these instruments have been deployed paying special attention to the origins of “Spreading Excellence and Widening Participation” Horizon 2020 Work Programme. We explore its objectives and rationale, and we address some of its weaknesses and pitfalls. We argue that the “innovation divide” is not only a matter of providing adequate resources and encouraging participation for these countries and they cannot be treated as a homogeneous group. Particularly, in a moment of transition regarding innovation policies.

1 Introduction

During the last decade, the European Union (EU or the Union) has tried to address the EU-13 countries also known as Low Performance Countries (LPC),¹ in dedicated strategies for meeting their participation gap in Framework Programmes (FP). Tackling the needs of new Member States for supporting its economic development throughout research and innovation has been at the core of the policy mix delivered by the Union since its origins. Despite the majority of these countries have demonstrated a relatively good performance and evolution in FPs through different programme evaluations (Puukka 2018; COWI 2017), its gap in FP participation is still a challenge for maximizing the benefits of a knowledge economy across the Union (Pazour et al. 2018). That is one of the reasons behind the rationale that put a bigger emphasis in these countries during the next FP9 also known as “Horizon Europe” (HE) (European Commission 2018a). This emphasis entails allocating a bigger number of funds and resources to a specific Work Programme (WP) initiated in “Horizon 2020” (H2020) named “Spreading Excellence and Widening Participation” (Widening).

But this gap cannot be simplistically explained only by economic factors and the lack of adequate funding for research and innovation. In the midst of an innovation policy transition towards societal challenges (Kuhlmann and Rip 2018; Schot and Steinmueller 2018; The Lund Declaration 2009), in this chapter we argue that there are many cultural particularities that can deter or favour the evolution of innovation ecosystems that can be found in this group of countries towards the ideals of research and innovation promoted by the Union. Here, we also highlight the “Responsible Research and Innovation” (RRI) paradigm as a tool that can facilitate this transition to a more participatory research and innovation in this group of EU-13 countries (Rip 2014; Owen et al. 2012; von Schomberg 2013).

In this chapter, we expose a historical analysis of the origins of Widening WP in H2020. We also introduce the current innovation policy transition and some of the cultural particularities observed in this group of countries and that can shape this transformation. The chapter is structured as follows: The next section provides an historic overview of the inception and development of the Widening WP; the third section exposes the current policy transition in research and innovation towards the “Grand Challenges”; the fourth section exposes the general problems that confront Widening WP, the fifth section stresses the role of cultural particularities in this transition and provides several recommendations for meeting the gap before providing the conclusions at the end of the chapter.

2 The Genesis of Widening in H2020

The EU has a long history of cooperation between its members around several domains of interest such as agriculture, fisheries, education, energy, health, industry, justice, or security among many others. In this long list, research and development have been one of the most important as this particular area has been considered by many Member States as a necessary backbone for promoting economic, social, and sustainable progress in the old continent (European Commission 2017a). This determination of the EU for encouraging cooperation in research and development as well as promoting scientific and technological advance is also enshrined in Article 3 of the consolidated treaty of the EU (European Union 2012; von Schomberg 2013). Originally, this article was introduced for the first time in the Treaty of Amsterdam,² enouncing this ambition with the following text in its third proposition:

3. The Union shall establish an internal market. It shall work for the sustainable development of Europe based on balanced economic growth and price stability, a highly competitive social market economy, aiming at full employment and social progress, and a high level of protection and improvement of the quality of the environment. It shall promote scientific and technological advance (European Union 2012, p. 3).

This aspiration to embed scientific and technological advance in the identity of the Union has been mainly manifested throughout the support of the European Research Area (ERA). A system composed by scientific research programs integrating the scientific resources of the EU.³ The main objective of ERA is to improve the competitiveness of European research institutions through the development of a common market in R & D and favouring the mobility of knowledge workers and cooperation between European institutions and other institutions overseas (European Commission 2000). The main instrument used to push forward ERA has been the Framework Programmes (FPs)s for Research and Technological Development.⁴ Starting in 1984, FPs have implemented significant changes in their evolution towards a more ambitious research and innovation EU agenda, specially, from FP7 onwards. It is important to remark that FP6 and its precedents covered five-year periods and had much less resources than FP7. This version of the FPs was the first one which covered a seven-year period and with a significant rise in their budget allocation (see Fig. 5.1).

Fig. 5.1

Budget overview of FP. Own elaboration upon public information from the EC website

Despite FP7 introduced significant changes in the evolution of the FPS, its eight edition also known as H2020, proposed a new structure around three pillars (Excellent Science, Industrial Leadership and Societal Challenges) and two specific objectives (Spreading Excellence and Widening Participation and Science with and for Society) instead of the more traditional instruments. This new structure was focused on innovation whilst prior versions of FP were focused on technological research. This new focus pursued a general objective of “building a society and economy based on knowledge and innovation” and to consider “excellence as guiding principle and main evaluation and selection criterion” (European Commission, 2017a, b, p. 22). The next FP9, also known as HE, wants to push forward this idea with a significant increase in its budget⁵ and insisting on the three-pillar structure (Excellent Science, Global Challenges & European Industrial Competitiveness and Innovative Europe) (European Commission 2018a). The focus on innovation in this programme will be also present with a new umbrella fund called “InvestEU” oriented to allocate resources to individuals and companies of all sizes in a variety of forms such as grants, prizes, loans, subsidies or public contracts, for ensuring funding to innovative ideas that can be transferred to the market.⁶

However, as the Union has been extended through different versions of the treaty to new Member States, the participation in FPs by other countries has not followed a similar pattern. The reasons for this divide lie in the innovation gap that occurs between the different Member States. This was spotted in the interim evaluation of FP7 (Pazour et al. 2018) and affects a group of countries that are commonly known as EU-13. This group mainly includes countries that joined the Union after 2004: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia (Corpakis 2016) (see Fig. 5.2). After this evaluation and during the genesis of H2020, these countries demanded a specific programme that could mitigate this innovation gap. Previous experiences held in FP7 like Research Potential (REGPOT) WP were identified as an incipient seed for developing a new instrument oriented to meet this gap (Claude et al. 2011).

Fig. 5.2

FP7 budget share per country %. (Corpakis 2016)

REGPOT WP allocated 370 million euros for funding 201 projects during the 2007–2013 period. Projects such as OPENGENE⁷ and STRONGER⁸ were recognized as significant initiatives to prevent brain-drain, lack of research infrastructure and access to finance in low-performing regions (Janssen 2014). REGPOT focused on exploiting research potential of “less advanced regions that are remotely situated from the European core of research and industrial development” for promoting “a strategy of inclusiveness that can potentially benefit the social fabric as well as the research community and the industry, locally and at the level of the European Research Area” (European Commission 2015).

REGPOT evaluation was highly successful and its results, in liaison with EU-13 countries demands, set the ground for a new WP in H2020 oriented to mitigate this innovation divide (European Commission 2014a). This new WP was “Spreading Excellence and Widening Participation” which “aims to address the causes of low participation by fully exploiting the potential of Europe’s talent pool”, as well as “it ensures that the benefits of an innovation-led economy are both maximized and widely distributed across the European Union” (European Commission 2014c).

In this new WP several Member States are eligible like Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Other Associated Countries can benefit also from Widening funding prior a valid association agreement of third countries with the H2020 program. These eligible countries are Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Faroe Islands, The Republic of North Macedonia, Georgia, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia, Tunisia, Turkey, and Ukraine (see Fig. 5.3). For making this selection of eligible countries in this WP, a new kind of criteria was introduced known as “Composite Indicator for Research Excellence” (Hardeman et al. 2013). This measure was proposed because of several factors concerning the key role of excellence in the R & I system, the way that excellence is measured in several dimensions, eliminating country size and country population biases, taking into account innovation performance and acknowledging the correlation between excellence and FP7 budget share per country (Corpakis 2014).

Fig. 5.3

Member States and Associated Countries eligible for Widening WP. In blue Member States and in yellow Associated Countries. (European Commission 2014c)

This indicator was originally conceived by The Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation in liaison with the Joint Research Centre, as part of the Innovation Union Competitiveness report (European Commission 2014b). The indicator is aimed to measure the research excellence in Europe, taking into account the efforts of the different Member States and the EU towards the modernization of research institutions, their ecosystems and their outputs (Ferretti et al. 2018). This complex approach is also justified by the multidimensional and increasing complex nature of economic structural change (Corpakis 2014). The proposed indicator is composed by four variables: (a) Highly cited publications of a country as a share of the top 10% most cited publications normalized by Gross Domestic Product (GDP). (b) Number of world-class universities and public research institutes in a country normalized by population in the world top 250 universities and research institutes. (c) Patent applications per million population and (d) Total value of ERC grants received divided by public R & D performed by the higher education and government sectors (Hardeman et al. 2013). The countries that have a score of 70% below the EU average are the ones that have been nominated as eligible for the Widening WP (European Commission 2013b; Adamiak 2019) (see Fig. 5.4). This indicator also created the distinction in the Union of Low Performance Countries (LPCs) in contrast to High Performance Countries (HPCs) that are above the aforementioned indicator (de Jong and Muhonen 2018). This standard of research excellence has been quite adopted in ERA despite many of the researchers involved in its conceptualization were not comfortable for measuring it through this set of indicators (Ferretti et al. 2018).

Fig. 5.4

Widening countries below the composite indicator. (Adamiak 2019)

Widening WP is organized around three Coordinated and Support Actions (CSA): Teaming, Twinning and ERA Chairs (European Commission 2014c). Teaming aims to promote institutional building, funding projects oriented to create new or updating existing centres of excellence in eligible countries throughout a coupling process with a leading scientific institution in another Member State. Twinning is oriented to institutional networking throughout linking the eligible centre with at least two international leading counterparts in Europe. Last, ERA Chairs promotes excellence in eligible institutions bringing outstanding academics, with proven research excellence and management skills, to research institutions in Widening countries.

SWEP WP also establishes synergies with European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF), trying to foster sustainability in these actions and aligning regional Smart Specialization Strategies (SSSs) to meet strategic priorities in innovation ecosystems. Last, it is important to stress that Widening WP only funds CSA and not Research and Innovation Actions (RIA), nor Innovation Actions (IA). For this reason, the majority of the projects funded by this WP are focused on building alliances, networking activities, and/or dissemination activities.

3 Policy Transition Towards the “Grand Challenges”

H2020 meant a big change in FPs history. Not only by the budget increase but for the new three-pillar structure. H2020 also introduced a new approach to collaborative R & D projects focused on ‘societal challenges’ as the main drivers that must guide research and innovation (European Commission 2017a). This approach demanded to abandon rigid thematic approaches (‘The Lund Declaration’ 2009) and it will be also present in the next FP9 as the three-pillar structure will continue. In addition, a mission policy-oriented approach will be introduced across the FP (European Commission 2018a). This transformation must be understood in a context where the whole Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) policy paradigm is changing to meet new requirements that stem directly from society and where innovation policies are entering into a new era due to growing financial pressures and societal challenges (Schot and Steinmueller 2018). In this sense, ‘grand challenges’ are permeating and guiding different policy interventions (Kuhlmann and Rip 2018), in contrast to previous approaches that were based around the idea of national systems of innovation (Lundvall 1992) or innovation and growth (Bush 1945; Rosenberg 1982).

In addition, the current evolution of SSSs and Triple and Quadruple Helix models (Leydesdorff 2012; Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff 2000; Foray 2016) is favouring also the adoption of the grand challenges that are currently faced by society at the policy level (Thapa et al. 2019; Uyarra et al. 2019; Fitjar et al. 2019; Tabarés et al. 2020a, b). Societal challenges like climate change, inequality or gender equality have also been framed by the United Nations in their 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) highlighting its importance from a policy perspective.⁹ SSSs are of special importance in this matter as they have been the cornerstone of EU regional policy making since the last decade. These policy plans emerged all over Europe after the failure of the Lisbon strategy and as a response to the productivity gap observed between US and Europe due to the lack of technological linkages and spill over effects between sectors and regions (McCann and Ortega-Argilés 2015). SSSs are context specific and force to regional policy makers to pursue a prioritization of domains of specialization upon the capacities of the regions in terms of research, industry, and education capabilities. This selection of domains of specialization is a sine qua non condition to receive ESIF funds and the great majority of Member States regions have developed their own SSSs during the last decade.¹⁰ Sustainability is at the core of this policy strategy as investments from EU funds in research and innovation pursue to help regional industries to gain competitiveness in global markets.

This focus of the economic development agenda of the EC in competitiveness and sustainability is also driven by the paramount and increasing importance of innovation across FPs. In this sense, innovation is conceived as the instrument that stimulates economic growth, providing new business opportunities, creating high-value added jobs, facilitating start-up scaling, licensing patents and enabling other valuable returns that can maintain and extend the European social welfare model (Eizagirre et al. 2017). This “innovation imperative” that can be observed in the policy strategy of the Union is also been mainstreamed in other economic development policies worldwide due to the increasing importance of this concept in many policy agendas (Pfotenhauer and Jasanoff 2017; Pfotenhauer et al. 2018). Many times throughout different technological imaginaries such as Industry 4.0 (Gutiérrez and Ezponda 2019) or self-driving cars (Stilgoe 2017), policy strategies try to project the constant need of innovating for promoting economic development.

Moreover, increasing pressures that confront innovation ecosystems for providing valuable economic assets and persistent influence of linear models of innovation in current innovation policies deter the adoption of grand challenges as guiding principles for this policy transition (Schot and Steinmueller 2018). These pressures and factors also produce exclusions regarding spaces for discussion and deliberation and/or inhibiting them towards a common sacrifice in favour of efficiency and acceleration of daily routines in R & D. But these spaces are critical for providing a forum where public values at stake can be discussed, negotiated, and enhanced by different stakeholders affected by the outcomes of research and innovation. Innovations that have not incorporated socio-ethical aspects in their design, conceptualization are not adopted by society, wasting a significant amount of resources and funding (European Commission 2013a; von Schomberg 2011). The inclusion of socio-ethical aspects in STI policies demands new reconfigurations that can enhance more participatory approaches not only for informing citizens about how research and innovation is conducted, but also for involving them in the way that is produced (Bierwirth and Gutiérrez 2018; Owen et al. 2012; Zwart et al. 2014). This provides multiple positive effects such as the alignment of societal needs with research outputs, the diffusion of scientific culture, the discussion of public values in the design of technologies that can provoke socio-technical reconfigurations and the societal legitimization of funded research programmes among many others.

The new approach introduced by H2020 also takes into account the need of making room for these spaces mainly through the RRI paradigm, but also by the introduction of a societal impact criterion in evaluation procedures. Here, RRI emerged as a policy-driven concept promoted by the EC for facilitating this kind of research impacts in society that can reconcile the aspirations and ambitions of EU citizens affected by research and innovation outcomes (Geoghegan-Quinn 2012; Owen et al. 2012; Owen and Pansera 2019; Rip 2014; von Schomberg 2013). The EC defines RRI as “an approach that anticipates and assesses potential implications and societal expectations with regard to research and innovation, with the aim to foster the design of “inclusive and sustainable research and innovation” (Geoghegan-Quinn 2012). This definition tries to emphasize how outputs of research and innovation can generate shortcomings or disadvantages not foreseen and how they can be anticipated by the help of some specific tools into research and innovation processes. The ultimate goal of this ambition seems to be better align R & D processes to fulfil EU societal expectations, and therefore, bridging the gap between the scientific community and society at large (von Schomberg 2011; Geoghegan-Quinn 2012).

Several challenges regarding the institutionalization and full implementation of the RRI paradigm have not been solved yet by H2020 (Novitzky et al. 2020; Tabarés et al. 2022) and it will remain to be at stake in the next FP (Gerber 2018). Here we found again that Widening countries are also not well engaged in the RRI concept as the recent experience of NewHoRRIzon has revealed (Griessler et al. 2018). Many projects funded by the Widening WP were not familiar with RRI and many stakeholders of this WP such as National Contact Points (NCPs) were completely unaware of it (Gutiérrez and Bierwirth 2019). This implies not only barriers for the dissemination of RRI, but also for being competitive in the next FP9 which will put more emphasis on citizen engagement and openness through an open science policy (European Commission 2018a). This particular challenge that awaits in coming years for Widening will be discussed during the next section.

4 Challenges for Transition in EU-13 Countries

Despite the efforts that the EC has pushed through the introduction of Widening WP in H2020, the low participation of these EU-13 countries in FPs is still a pending challenge in ERA. There are several problems that currently face this group of countries such as bureaucracy (and the need of associated management profiles to deal with), the development of particular skills to take part in research programmes and other difficulties more related with structural factors and an emergent divide between some EU-13 countries trying to catch up whilst others are lagging behind (Puukka 2018).

Nevertheless, the majority of these countries seem to have a relatively good performance in FPs as different evaluations of their participation have shown (Puukka 2018; Peck 2018; European Commission 2014a). This is one of the reasons that promoted the idea that allocating more funding to this WP in the next FP will contribute to mitigate the participation gap between Member States (European Commission 2018a). To date, there is a substantial commitment by the EC to secure a 3.3% of the total budget of HE for the next Widening WP. This huge expected increase means to at least double the previous budget allocated in H2020 to this WP (European Commission 2018a). This and other measures are oriented towards the idea of having a real “Innovation Union”, where the mixture of their different Member States innovative performance contributes to the improvement of the Union in terms of economic development, employment, social welfare and solidarity. This idea has been expressed by different policy recommendations delivered by high-level expert groups (Lammy et al. 2017), but also by significant members of EC such as President Jean-Claude Juncker: “Europe must be a Union of equality and a Union of equals. Equality between its Members, big or small, East or West, North or South. Make no mistake, Europe extends from Vigo to Varna. From Spain to Bulgaria. East to West: Europe must breathe with both lungs. Otherwise our continent will struggle for air” (European Commission 2017b).

Besides the encyclical remembrance of the divide between Catholic and Orthodox Church in the famous discourse of Pope John Paul II (Ut Unum Sint), these calls for solidarity and cooperation between Member States are common in terms of R & D. As we are transitioning into a new innovation policy paradigm towards a mission policy orientation for facing societal challenges, the role of ecosystems and regions are of outmost importance for avoiding inequalities and divides between territories. Especially in the Union, where the North and South have experienced greater economic divides due to the Grand Recession (2008), and between West and East, mainly because of the Iron Curtain (1945–1991) where precisely most of the Widening countries are located (Veugelers 2016). An ambition to mitigate some externalities of innovation has been present to some extent in the policy mix delivered by the EU. Usually, trying to help those countries to keep up the pace with the EU rhythm whilst contributing to guarantee the competitiveness of the European economy and the extension of its social welfare state.¹¹ Collaboration, cooperation, investment in future ideas, involvement of different actors, open markets, participatory dynamics, research, technology development and many other ideas, values and attitudes towards innovation have been at the forefront since the very beginning of the Union as a way of promoting the EU ideals across the Union and out of it (European Commission 2014b, 2017a, b). These values are also aligned with the participatory dynamics that RRI aims to promote for aligning innovation outcomes with societal needs. But the embracement of RRI and more participatory research and innovation practices also demand to develop several skills and profiles that can facilitate societal engagement.

In this regard, it seems that Widening researchers and institutions are not adequately equipped. Some studies have inquired how societal impact criterion is managed by Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in these countries, where engagement seems to be more common, and the results confirm this lack of skills (de Jong and Muhonen 2018). Some of the reasons behind seem to point to a low tradition of stakeholder involvement in research projects, lack of public engagement, inadequate investment in R & D and some specific socio-economic context conditions in Widening countries that don’t favour participatory approaches (Puukka 2018; Peck 2018).

Certainly, it is difficult to make generalizations for this group of EU-13 countries as the situation of them towards research and innovation can differ in many ways. As an example, countries like Estonia or Portugal¹² have demonstrated a nice performance (increasing participation in calls and projects, national programs for supporting, training and coaching H2020 candidates, rising international research collaboration throughout co-authored indexed publications) and evolution during the H2020 lifespan, but other countries like Bulgaria or Romania are still lagging behind (Puukka 2018; European Commission 2017a, 2018b; COWI 2017). The results delivered by the diagnosis carried out in the New HoRRIzon project (Griessler et al. 2018; Gutiérrez and Bierwirth 2019) as well as the different activities carried out in the associated social lab¹³ (Tabarés et al. 2020a, b) seem to back up this argument.

In this sense, there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution for the diverse problematics that can be found in these countries. It is also of great difficulty to try to envision a program that can meet their different requirements. Too many economic developmental disparities can be found in this group of countries that cannot be explained only by a simple East-West division (Peck 2018). Countries that entered the Union after 2004 benefited from the access to the EU single market as well as ESIF funding. This provided an economic boost, extending their commercial relationships and establishing new alliances for future end emergent sectors that can be spurred by investments in STI. However, structural reforms are needed to convey in these countries for favouring “a particular way of doing R & D”. Here, cultural particularities are of utmost importance in this transition to a more participatory research and innovation.

5 The Importance of Cultural Particularities Towards the Policy Transition

As it has been stressed, the EC embraced a very dedicated agenda towards the diffusion of RRI across the whole H2020 FP (Timmermans 2017; Geoghegan-Quinn 2012). This effort has also provoked an irregular and disparate diffusion of the topic among Member States and different subsections of FP (Mejlgaard et al. 2018; Novitzky et al. 2020). Into the Union we find strong supporters such as The Netherlands¹⁴ or UK,¹⁵ that have developed their own national programmes to foster the embracement of RRI in their R & D ecosystems and facilitating a transition to more participatory STI policies. But at the same time, this disparity has evidenced the uncertainties about to what extent the operationalization and institutionalization of RRI practices have gone mainstream across ERA (Gerber 2018). In this sense, Widening countries have not greatly benefited from this effort (Griessler et al. 2018; Gutiérrez and Bierwirth 2019). Socio-ethical, geo-economic disparities and cultural particularities that can be found in this group of countries seem to play a role in the participation gap that still exists in FPs.

These particularities can also deter or favour the embracement and expansion of RRI on their innovation ecosystems and therefore, to accelerate or to block the needed transformation of STI policy to meet the grand challenges (Kuhlmann and Rip 2018; The Lund Declaration, 2009). The adoption of RRI seems to be critical for this policy transition but it is also only a part of the problem. National structures, resources and mechanisms also play a major role towards this transition as they will need to adopt new reconfigurations, practices and relationships that can make room for new actors, but also to avoid established procedures in STI policy. Again, favouring “a particular way of doing R & D” In this sense, it is not useful to consider these countries as a uniform group from a geo-cultural perspective. Eastern Europe seems to be the main macro-region that represents a great number of countries in Widening, even though there are several socio-economic and geo-political differences that cannot reduce its complexity.

For instance, gender equality in Bulgaria is heavily misunderstood and it is commonly perceived as a concept that defies the basic values of its traditional society. That is why on the 27 July 2018, the Constitutional Court of Bulgaria ruled that the Istanbul Convention (Council of Europe 2011) is incompatible with the Bulgarian constitution. In a public statement, the court stressed that the convention definition of ‘gender’ as a social construct “relativizes the borderline between the two sexes (male and female) as biologically determined,” which can lead to the loss of the capacity of a society to distinguish between a man and a woman.¹⁶ Gender dimension is also mostly misunderstood in other Widening countries such as Romania and Serbia. It is common to observe that research institutions do not possess gender equality plans and it seems to be no awareness of this despite there are clear unbalances in management positions (Griessler et al. 2018).

This example illustrates how cultural particularities that can be found in EU-13 countries can deter the diffusion of the RRI keys. RRI can also entail a public contestation of societal values in these countries, like in the case of gender equality. Other keys associated to the RRI paradigm such as public engagement can also create conflicts as this can be misinterpreted as a loss of autonomy or a waste of time in some spheres. Centralized structures are still common in public research organizations in several East-European countries which are closely related with their research cultures and traditions of the legacy of the Iron Curtain. Centralization can be an obstacle for science-society interactions as deter or hinder spontaneous moves from research organizations towards open science or RRI (public engagement or citizen science activities among others) that can be carried out on an exploratory basis. This also explained why little awareness was found regarding “governance” RRI key in the New HoRRIzon project among Widening WP stakeholders (Griessler et al. 2018). New formed coalitions developed under tentative initiatives between research organizations and citizen associations can be also hindered by centralization. In addition, the context-sensitivity of SSSs and its focus on geographical decentralization also emphasizes values such as collaboration and cooperation between different regional stakeholders (McCann and Ortega-Argilés 2015). This can be also problematic under a centralized approach. Tracing some of the pre-existing values fostered by older regimes in these countries can clearly provide a barrier for adopting RRI and the policy transition to “Grand Challenges” (Lukovics et al. 2017).

Formal social capital also seems to play a role in this issue, as some studies have shown that it is structured in a substantial different way from western countries, where forms of collaboration with different R & D agents and different stakeholders are more stable (Pichler and Wallace 2007). This lack of formal social capital is usually substituted by informal social capital, but when dealing with research and innovation it can also hinder transparency in R & D processes as not many stakeholders are involved in them. Moreover, countries with a low tradition of participation are not well equipped to promote concertation of actors for meeting societal challenges (Kuhlmann and Rip 2018; Schot and Steinmueller 2018).

These cultural particularities that can be observed in EU-13 countries will demand RRI tools and capacities for facilitating and accommodating the transformation of STI policy. In this regard, synergies of RRI with SSSs seem to be relevant as these two policy-driven concepts can mutually benefit between them, but also because RRI can act over SSSs to facilitate this policy transition to a more participatory research and innovation oriented to societal challenges (Thapa et al. 2019; Uyarra et al. 2019). Taking into account the different cultural particularities that are at the core of R & D regional ecosystems will be of utmost importance for favouring the embracement of RRI in the EU-13 countries as a powerful tool for facilitating this policy transition.

To this extent, the expansion of the RRI paradigm across ERA should not be shaped or deterred by the own structure pushed by the FPs. The ideals behind RRI do not only pursue to strength the relationship between science & society, but also to reconfigure the way that research and innovation are conducted. Relying on the capacities of Member States to attract funding coming from FPs for disseminating RRI across the Union only reinforces a “winner takes it all” strategy whilst augmenting the “innovation divide”. EU commitment with R & D as the main driver of economic growth, social cohesion, and democracy enabler can be recognized in several policy documents (European Commission 2014b, 2017a ; European Union 2012). Here, what is at stake is not only “a particular way of doing R & D”, but how STI is shaped by EU ideals and extended across the EU territory. Principles of cooperation, solidarity, social cohesion, public engagement and democratic participation must be embedded in innovations funded by the Union and extended across its Member States. Maximizing and extending the benefits of a knowledge economy to all Member States has been on the agenda of the Union since a long time ago, as innovation divides have been persistent at national level across the EU. In fact, the whole concept of ERA from its inception was spurred to address this innovation gap between Member States, for “bringing together the scientific communities, companies and researchers of Western and Eastern Europe” (European Commission 2000, p. 8), improving researchers capacities and integrating talent into the European scientific community. After several efforts, now it seems that some convergence in research and innovation performance have been achieved among Member States during the last decades, but significant innovation divides still remains without a clear explanation behind (Peck 2018).

No simple East-West or North-South divisions can be used for addressing the complexity of the problem, but of course these differences are playing a role. The sequels produced by the economic crisis of 2008 slashed R & D national budgets (Veugelers 2016). COVID-19 crisis will probably not dig into these cuts (these are two completely different crisis) but it will have other kind of economic negative effects. Several socio-economic inequalities between Member States are usually stressed, but cultural particularities seem to remain unveiled or not addressed properly at their full complexity. Insisting on treating these EU-13 countries that are the recipients of Widening actions as a uniform group remains to be a mistake. Increasing the budget of this WP in a significant manner for next FP is a right measure to facilitate an ‘Innovation Union’ (European Commission 2014b), but at the same time it denies the cultural and ethical particularities that are at the core of their regional innovation ecosystems. More dedicated and specialized approaches and measures are needed. Splitting this group of countries into several categories that can categorize their innovation performances, their strengths and capabilities as well as their weaknesses seems to be the first step to address this complexity. This is also important from a RRI perspective, as different meanings or visions of RRI can be allocated to the different particularities that can be found in this group of countries. Some RRI keys can be a public contestation of traditional values in these countries (like gender equality), but at the same time there are drivers for an axiological integration process of Member States. To date, the Union is mostly an economic union, but the increasing integration political processes that are being deployed will probably demand an international convergence of EU ideals and values. Something, that in the case of gender equality is also aligned with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

A second important step towards meeting this gap is taking stock of the knowledge produced by EU funded projects during this decade and mobilizing towards the right direction. The work deployed in projects such as New HoRRIzon,¹⁷ RRI Practice¹⁸ or RRI Tools,¹⁹ to name a few, is quite comprehensive and useful enough for being extended across ERA. Widening countries seem to have cultural particularities that hamper the introduction of open, collaborative and sustainable approaches towards research and innovation. In this sense, the benefits of RRI should be extended across the Union and to be used as an agile tool to meet this gap. In this particular issue, ESIF funds can be also mobilized for meeting those gaps and developing research capabilities already demanded in the EU landscape. ESIF funds should be mobilized not only for overcoming economic shortcomings, but also for facilitating participatory research and innovation ecosystems. Development of deliberative approaches, accountability mechanisms, participatory dynamics and discussion spaces where society can be involved in a meaningful way into STI, are some of the pending issues that deter the diffusion and social appropriation of RRI at Widening countries. Promotion of ERA values across the EU should not follow the imitation of practices performed by innovation leaders. This may run the risk of promoting cultural uniformity and sacrificing cultural diversity for the sake of cohesion and integration. Here is where the role of RRI and its application to regional innovation ecosystems with the help of SSSs can create an opportunity to advance in the integration political processes whilst maintaining regional identities.

Last, the own structure of the Widening WP oriented to establish linkages between HPCs and LPCs (innovation leaders and followers), deters the development and facilitation of a community of practitioners around the WP. In many subsections of H2020 dedicated events such as brokerage activities, joint conferences and others help to establish a community of practice. Practitioners are interested in the themes of the WP and establish alliances and synergies, generating common knowledge, sharing experiences that usually provoke “spill over effects” in the regional ecosystems where they act.

6 Conclusion

As we have exposed in this chapter, the complexity of EU-13 countries cannot be reduced to a particular group of Member States that have an innovation performance below the average of the EU, according to an intricate indicator. This complexity of regional innovation ecosystems and research practices in EU-13 countries needs to be addressed in more sophisticated ways that can drive a real transformation towards the adoption of a policy transition oriented to the “Grand Challenges”. Throughout the text we have underlined how RRI can be a tool that can facilitate this transformation. However, the use of the RRI paradigm will demand from an intensive and tailored cultural integration into the different contexts that exist in these EU-13 countries. The existence of SSSs is a good steppingstone where RRI can be situated, but it will demand active and context-sensitive specific efforts. If no specific measures are conducted in this regard, we may run the risk of aggravating the innovation divide instead of mitigating it as several cultural particularities joint to their different socio-economic differences are playing a significant role in the evolution of EU-13 countries with regard to research and innovation.

To meet this challenge, we stress the need of taking into account these cultural particularities in the future Widening WP, but also to extend these actions to other programs that are intimately associated to ESIF funds and other instruments for political integration in the EU. The Union as a political project is still in its infancy and R & I is probably one of these domains where economy and politics can generate conflicts with regional identities and values. In this sense, this is a domain where the Union needs to put a lot of efforts for not making the mistake of losing the diversity that it is at the core of the different territories that compose it. We encourage to social science researchers to take on this topic and to provide a more comprehensive picture of the diversified motivations and attitudes that can favour or deter the policy transition across different Member States. This will be one of the most important challenges that this group of countries will face in coming years for mitigating the innovation divide.