This session counted on the participation of Giuseppe Pellegrini (Observa), Magdalena Roszczyńska-Kurasińska (UNIWAR), Céline Pelletier (MNHN), Daniela Pereira (MEC-URUGUAY), Niccolò Tempini (UNEXE), Giuseppe A. Veltri (UNITN) and Sebastiano Bavetta (UNIPA).

This session showcased the different strands of the project’s empirical research, which have been instrumental to the implementation of the project’s vision as discussed in session 2.

It comprised eight posters, each of them offering a visual summary of the goals, methods, milestones and outputs of the different areas of work, and members of the individual teams were available to answer questions and offer explanations.

This session was led by Massimo Warglien (UNIVE), Giuseppe A. Veltri (UNITN), and George Gaskell (UNITN).

Prospects and opportunities, as well as the limitations, of online deliberation and participation as studied in the project were addressed.

The project has developed a particular tool, called “Argument Extractor”, for digging out and analysing casual statements and other forms of argumentation from social media, in particular, online textual data on science-based topics of current public interest.

This tool was presented, and its use was demonstrated and discussed during the session. Other types of digital analysis used by the project were also presented.

This session was led by Sophia Efstathiou (NTNU). Sophia presented ISEED’s Policy Brief Series and its recommendations.

Sophia presented a parallel sets of recommendations to foster deliberative participation present in the Policy Brief Series and offered the floor for discussion.

The sessions focused on how to rethink the governance of science within the domain of citizen science; how to pursue a policy of making citizen science projects as educational grounds for the creation of a democratically “engaged citizen”; how to encourage institutional commitment towards making citizens more skillful in deliberation while respecting diversity in public engagement.

Eleonora Montuschi (UNIVE) was the chair of this session and hosted the speakers Alessandro Allegra (Policy Assistant to the Deputy Director-General for Research and Innovation), Joachim Ott (Head of Unit Directorate-General for Communication Citizens’ Dialogues Unit), Stephanie Ruphy (ENS), Agata Gozdzik (ISEED Advisory Board member), Lars Kluver (Democracy X) and George Gaskell (UNITN).

Taking the cue from some of the leading questions of the project, members of the project’s Advisory Board and external guests interacted with the audience to address a number of issues of relevance regarding public deliberation and democratic participation.

In particular, they focused on the challenges that making “engaged citizenship” a non-dispensable aspect of democratic life seems to entail – including taking into account the variety and differences of citizen awareness, interests and engagement provided by the European socio-political context.