Democratic Governance through interaction between NGOs, Universities and Science Shops: Experiences, Expectations, Recommendations

The INTERACTS research project is a pioneer cross-national study by organisations and institutions from seven different countries – Austria, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain, and the United Kingdom conducted in the period of January 2002 until December 2003. The aim of the project is to contribute to improved interaction between NGOs, universities and Science Shops by providing information on the experiences and expectations of co-operation between small and medium NGOs and universities through intermediaries such as Science Shops. The project should be seen as a contribution to the discussion of strategies for democratic governance. The INTERACTS research project was funded by the European Commission, DG12 under the programme “Improving the Human Research Potential and the Socio-economic Knowledge Base” – “Strategic Analysis of Specific Political Issues”. INTERACTS is an Accompanying Measure to ISSNET (the Thematic Network of Inter-national Science Shop Network, Living Knowledge). The INTERACTS research project has included: • A State-of-the-Art survey about political and institutional contexts of co-operation between small to medium non-governmental organisations (NGOs), Science Shops, and universities in the partner countries. • Twenty-one national case studies analysing experiences of interaction between NGOs, researchers, students and Science Shops and the impact on societal dis-courses, research agendas and university curricula • The expectations for and perspectives of co-operation between NGOs, re-searchers and Science Shops expressed by stakeholder groups at the INTERACTS scenario workshops (NGOs, researchers, students, decision-makers and intermediaries).