New European summit on the role of SSH in social innovation

This week the ACCOMPLISSH project has assembled academics and stakeholders at a European congress on social innovation and co-creation in the Social Sciences and Humanities disciplines taking place in Tallinn. Among its assistants, the meeting included members of the University of Barcelona (UB), one of the universities of the project, and the Public Administration School of Catalonia, one of the collaborating institutions of the Catalan area.

During the 13^th and the 14^th of November the ACCOMPLISSH project congregated more than 70 representatives of the so called quadruple helix –formed by the university, industry, government and societal organisations- coming from different European countries. This multi-actor dialogue platform format responds to the ACCOPMLISSH approach, as it is a project centred on the SSH research social impact. At this moment, when almost 2 years of the 3 year project calendar have passed, the Tallinn meeting has offered a space for working with experiences and practical cases by applying previous results from data and theoretical conceptualization research. According to the social commitment of the project, the main questions addressed were related to the potential of the innovation and co-creation processes between the quadruple helix agents as a tool to tackle societal problems. Thus, numerous activities were proposed covering a wide range of issues, from a workshop on the skills needed for evidence-informed policymaking to a debate on academia-industry joint projects experiences.

As it was the last official ACCOMPLISSH meeting of 2017, the Tallinn congress also brought the opportunity to share with the societal partners the issues developed during the year in the universities working meetings that take place in Zagreb (June) and Barcelona (September). The University of Barcelona was represented in all the project meetings, as it takes part in ACCOMPLISSH throughout the UB Social Sciences and Humanities Park and the researchers from the FODIP research group, on Teacher Training and Educational Innovation. Specifically, on this occasion, the attendees representing the UB team for the Tallinn meeting have been the Principal Investigator, Dr. Núria Serrat, from the Department of Teaching and Learning and Educational Organization; Dr. Jordi Méndez, from the Department of Methods of Research and Diagnosis in Education; and Ms. Mònica Sabata as an advisory expert in communication and collaboration with social agents working at the UB SSH Park. Furthermore, the Public Administration School of Catalonia has been represented by Ms. Eulàlia Pla, Deputy Director General for Research and Senior Management Training; Ms. Tània Fernàndez, Head of Senior Management Training; and Ms. Núria Guevara, Head of Research, Documentation and Publications. Both the UB and the EAPC assistants valued the meeting organisations and contents.

For the year 2018, two meetings are already scheduled, an ACCOMPLISSH universities meeting at Newcastle University and a new quadruple helix congress hosted by the University of Groningen, which is the one in responsibility for the coordination of the project. For this next year, the University of Barcelona team has as main tasks the development of the dissemination activity of the project, co-leaded with the Tallinn University, and the planning of the Final Conference that will take place in Barcelona at the beginning of 2019.