On May 7, CO-VALUE project brought together its five sister projects, financed under the call Experimentation and exchange of good practices for value creation in 2023 and 2024, in Brussels for a full-day training on engaging citizens in knowledge valorisation. Further details about the call and Horizon projects appear in the next section.

The day opened with a session exploring the role of citizen engagement in enhancing the societal value and uptake of research results and innovation. Participants were introduced to key concepts and frameworks, including levels of engagement and a short exercise helped them position citizen engagement within their own projects, a useful starting point for a room with diverse backgrounds and experiences.

A second session offered a hands-on overview of practical methodologies, such as co-design, co-creation, citizen science and hackathons, focusing on when and how to use these approaches for knowledge valorisation, illustrated with real examples drawn from EU projects. Participants left with a clearer picture of the methodological landscape and where their own work sits within it.

The afternoon brought the conversation to life through direct insights from CO-VALUE pilots, showcasing how engagement processes were designed, implemented and translated into concrete knowledge valorisation outcomes. Key lessons learned and success factors were shared, enriched by a testimonial from the REMEDY project, which brought an external perspective to the room.

A dedicated session then addressed the ethical and practical challenges that anyone running citizen engagement processes will inevitably face: co-assessment, intellectual property and the recognition and rewarding of citizens’ contributions, topics that generated lively discussion among participants.

The day closed with final reflections and key takeaways, leaving participants with new tools, new connections and a shared commitment to making citizen engagement a more visible and valued part of their knowledge valorisation work.