Citizen-led recommendations for the Horizon Europe Missions on sustainability

Abstract

Executive summary: The Horizon Europe Missions were created in 2021 as a specific instrument to address main societal challenges with tangible results by 2030, in a format committed to engaging citizens in their activities and processes. After over 3 years of implementation, this is the starting point for this report: given the prioritisation of citizens and societal needs and challenges within the Missions, the SSH CENTRE project consortium argues that a more sustained consideration of citizen perspectives is needed. As such, this report addresses this gap, by showcasing the views of 160 citizens from 25 different nationalities, gathered through 42 focus groups. For each of the four sustainability-related Horizon Europe Missions (‘100 Climate-neutral and smart cities by 2030’; ‘Adaptation to climate change’; ‘Restore our ocean and waters’; and ‘A soil deal for Europe’), we provide topic-specific recommendations that directly build on the citizens’ dialogue during the focus groups. These focus groups were led by Debating Europe (as affiliated entity of the SSH CENTRE consortium partner, Friends of Europe) and directly engaged citizens from EU countries, as well as Horizon Europe Associated Countries, on each of these four missions. The focus groups sought participant input on, for example: the EU’s work regarding the specific Mission they were discussing; what they would like their local government to take action on; and how they thought citizens should be engaged in the work of the Missions. In addition to providing recommendations on each of the four sustainability-related missions, this report also provides some cross-cutting recommendations to EU Missions more generally in terms of how citizen engagement (e.g. methods, considerations) may be strengthened. Following the focus groups, Debating Europe organised four online policy panels (one per mission), which have also fed into the recommendations. These panels involved senior policy leaders reflecting on the emerging findings and recommendations from the focus groups. The panels also represented an opportunity to begin dialogue with key policy players and gatekeepers on the issues presented in this report.