The role of stakeholder involvement in EU research and innovation policy: a case study of Technology Platform Organics

This paper analyses the importance that participatory approaches may play in shaping the innovation policy in the context of the EU research framework programme. The paper reports case-study research on the role of “TP Organics”, a European Technology Platform (ETP) that supports research and innovation in organic farming in the EU. The case study is based on data concerning the relevance of resources pertaining to organic farming in the EU’s most recent framework programmes for research and development (FP7 and Horizon 2020). We use process tracing to analyse the causal effects of the participatory approach used by TP Organics in defining policies and promoting funding for the organic sector. Data concerning textual content analysis on research calls and budget disaggregation for EU research funding are used to test the hypothesis that the engagement of stakeholders provides concrete effects in terms of the number of research projects explicitly oriented to organic farming and the amount of research funding made available. Results refer to the outcomes of a structured testing sequence for the key hypotheses supporting the causal model. They show that the impact of TP Organics relies on its successful multi-stakeholder participatory processes, which have improved the relevance of research themes related to organic farming and have ultimately yielded an increase in financed research projects and financial contributions to research on organic farming in the EU. Conclusions provide some theoretical generalisations on the importance of stakeholder engagement in successfully lobbying for research policy.