Mr Esteban Pelayo Villarejo (p), Ms María del Mar Cervera Reig, Ms Estrella Tobarra Rodrigo

Operationalising Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) within company-led knowledge valorisation remains a practical and policy challenge. This paper reports on the CO-VALUE pilot experimentation coordinated by Alicante Science Park (PCA), which tested a “co-valorisation” model across five pilots (involving seven principal actors) to make RRI principle of citizen engagement operational in everyday innovation workflows. The pilot portfolio deliberately combined circular-economy initiatives (FYCH Technologies, Solublion) with data and emerging-technology cases (Aguas de Alicante, InferIA, Golden Owl, Weitec) to probe methodological robustness across diverse technical, ethical and market contexts.

Methodologically, CO-VALUE adopted a participatory action-research design. Each pilot implemented a standard three-phase facilitation sequence (exploration, co-design, validation), with occasional extension to a fourth session where tensions required deeper deliberation (notably in Aguas de Alicante and Weitec). Citizens were recruited to ensure socio-demographic diversity using a professional survey company and local open calls; participants received €40 per 2.5-hour workshop. Facilitation teams was decisive in ensuring that a methodology developed by the Belgian consultancy company Stickydot was effectively implemented.

Interim findings indicate that early citizen inclusion, professional facilitation and transparent documentation convert participatory inputs into actionable design requirements, especially where products directly affect daily life (e.g., InferIA’s explainable-AI interfaces; Weitec’s urban surveillance application). Circular-economy pilots produced more process-oriented learning but fewer immediate product changes, underscoring the need to match method to sectoral challenge. Practical constraints emerged on the further operationalisation of the process, involving a less costly method that would make it long-term financial sustainable.

Policy implications are threefold: (1) recognise governance outputs as legitimate innovation results; (2) invest in permanent facilitation capacity within science parks and regional development agencies (RDAs); and (3) link citizen-informed requirements to procurement and innovation funding mechanisms (innovation vouchers, municipal co-funding, pilot procurement) to secure sustainability. By embedding RRI’s core dimensions (anticipation, inclusion, reflexivity and responsiveness), the CO-VALUE co-valorisation model offers a transferable template that aligns innovation with sustainability.

We conclude that operationalised RRI is feasible at company level when supported by institutional pathways and professional facilitation. The CO-VALUE co-valorisation model offers a transferable template for practitioners seeking to reconcile competitiveness with democratic legitimacy and sustainability in EU regions. Findings inform practitioners and policymakers engaged in territorial RRI and human-centred tech governance. Future research will track longitudinal impacts on firm competitiveness, social equity and adoption rates, and will test cost-effective facilitation models and funding mixes to embed co-valorisation as a routine service within regional innovation support structures.

Dr. Steven Parker (p), Dr Kate Broadhurst, Professor David Gilchrist

Multi agency service hubs have become a common way of integrating public services at scale as well as providing a tangible operational response to fragmented front line delivery. UK examples include Multi Agency Safeguarding Hubs and Family Hubs. Their design and intended outcomes are shaped by established multi-organisational models such as partnership, networks, integration, and co creation. However, although often presented as holistic, collaborative institutions, this integrated practice remains incomplete. Evidence shows, collaborative practice within hubs remains partial: behavioural barriers, entrenched professional boundaries, and divergent organisational priorities frequently limit the realisation of genuinely integrated working, despite strong rhetorical commitments to collaboration (Parker et al. 2023). A reliance on contractual agreements that delineate the professional boundaries of each service operating within the hub can prevent genuine collaboration and its inherent benefits. As a result, in the UK case, procurement must be conducted by one of the partner bodies acting as the contracting authority, while in Australia a top-down funder-driven process is masked by collaborative rhetoric. In this paper, we seek to explore this conundrum by examining: (1) how multi agency hubs differently conceptualise and operationalise multi-organisational models within public procurement compared to genuine collaborative service delivery; (2) in what ways these differing genuine collaborative logics can interact, complement, or cause conflict when brought together within multi agency hub arrangements; and (3) what theoretical insights emerge from comparing genuine collaboration embedded in procurement frameworks with genuine collaboration embedded in service delivery to inform the development of more coherent, effective and efficient multi agency hub models. Analysis will be based on documentary examination of multi agency service hub policy in the UK and Australia to understand how collaboration is theorised in human services contexts and in public procurement.

Dr. Jonathan Morris (p), Professor Namchul Shin, Lisa Junge

Public Procurement, accounting for approximately 14% of GDP in the European Union, has significant potential to support sustainability transitions. This can be achieved through stimulating demand for innovative products and processes (e.g. Public Procurement for Innovation), or taking a lifecycle perspective for considering environmental impacts (e.g. Green Public Procurement). Increasingly circular economy (CE) is becoming of interest in procurement practices, for example through embedding circularity into supplier selection and evaluation processes. To understand how CE considerations are currently incorporated into procurement practices, this research uses an automated content analysis (ACA) approach through a large language model (GPT-4), applied to a selection of 89 calls for tender from the European Union’s Tenders Electronic Daily (TED) database. These notices met the criteria of: matching the keyword search “circular economy”; published in the year 2023; conducted under an open procedure; focused only in one country; and issued by a local or regional authority. The framework underpinning the ACA is based on CE characteristics and urban transformative capacities. The ongoing findings reveal only 60% of notices include criteria beyond price, and just 20% reference explicit CE related practices in supplier requirements or project descriptions. Future research will refine the analytical framework and expand the dataset across multiple years. These enhanced findings aim to contribute to the development of more robust criteria for operationalising CE strategies, which will build organisational capacities in local and regional governments.