Collaboratively Detecting
Blind Spots in Science
The Priority Setting Program builds upon previous experience with involving citizens, patients and stakeholders in actively shaping research priorities at the Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft. This highly innovative approach has led to the establishment of five Open Innovation in Science research units using elements of priority setting in certain steps of their founding procedures (Research Group Village, Research Group D.O.T., LBI Digital Health Patient Safety, LBI Digital Health & Prevention, Research Group Senescence and Healing of Wounds).
Since the first “Tell us” crowdsourcing projects successfully experimented with shaping research questions by experts by experience using crowd wisdom, different priority setting methods have already been applied, like sand pit approaches to collaboratively form project proposals (Ideas Lab) and applying lead user/experts workshop series to refine research questions.
The Priority Setting Program is an integral part of the LBG OIS Center. We aim to establish a central hub within the Austrian research landscape, for prioritizing research by meaningfully involving citizens, patients and stakeholders.
Typically, researchers, research institutions or funding organizations decide on the agenda that research should pursue. But when it comes to addressing the needs of the general public as key stakeholder, these agendas often exhibit blind spots. Key for addressing these blind spots and ultimately increasing the impact of science in the long run is to meaningfully involve those directly affected in jointly setting research priorities.
We truly believe that others can learn from our priority setting activities and therefore want to offer our learnings to a larger audience. This is why we provide updated information about our priority setting experiences via the Open Science Framework.