The first PPIE Pilot Call to support citizen participation activities was ended on October 31, 2020.

A total of 29 applications were submitted from 15 different institutions. Also, more than a half of the applications were not from Vienna but from other federal states. This shows that participatory approaches in science are both institutionally and geographically widespread in Austria.

While the majority of the applications were thematically related to health, they contained a large number of different participatory approaches. Additionally, the applicants had very different disciplinary backgrounds. Each 24% of the applicants indicated a background from the health and natural sciences or medicine, 21% came from the humanities and social sciences and around 7% from the technical sciences. It is also gratifying that the PPIE Pilot Call primarily addressed young scientists and was able to encourage them to submit a proposal. A total of EUR 1.4 million was applied for by doctoral candidates (24%), postdocs (41%), professors (28%) and scientific-administrative staff (7%)

Selection of projects

Until the end of January 2021, an external expert committee will evaluate the submitted proposals based on the four quality criteria (quality of participation, impact, implementation and feasibility).

The expert committee consists of

• two international senior researchers in the field of patient and public involvement,
• two representatives of the public thereof one patient and one public member in the field of public health and
• two young persons (16-25 years) with basic knowledge of scientific processes.

The expert committee evaluates the applications individually based on the criteria and creates a ranking based on the discussion in the selection meeting.

Next steps

Evaluation of the proposals: December 2020 – January 2021

Publication of the decision: February 2021

Project start: March 2021