Browsing by Subject "Political Sociology"

Developed economies face increasing pressures of to produce innovations that improve their competitiveness and resilience in a globalized economy. The Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development of the European Commission as funding instruments for innovation have therefore gained significance in the increasing of its geopolitical power through competitiveness and resilience. While the Framework Programmes as a policy have been researched widely, the roles of its funded projects, that is consortia, as actors within the larger political context of research and development have been researched little. This research aims to contribute to the understanding on the ways in which researchers, commercial entities and third sector actors as part of research consortia influence the development of Framework Programmes from the bottom-up perspective. Through a political sociology approach, the role of consortia formation, social networks and role characteristics within consortia are used as concepts to their extent of explaining the ways in which non-state actors use Europeanization processes such as Framework Programmes to advance their interests and visions. The data was collected through in-depth semistructured interviews of ten Horizon 2020 consortium participants and two R&D experts and a reflexive thematic analysis method was applied. Consortium initiators were found to have a high relevance in their ability to interpret the call for proposal and thus determine the outputs that contribute to the overall impact of the Framework Programme, presenting a circularity in the Europeanization of R&D. By choosing to exercise their gate-keeping or agenda-setting power, the consortium core participants steer their interpretation of the call for proposal towards their desired direction. The social networks were mainly found to function as pools of contacts and as insurance against the uncertainties that come with the acting in an international setting but could also provide insider knowledge that advanced their social position and competencies of the consortium core, strengthening the ability to influence the Europeanization from bottom-up. The results indicate that the consortium formation, social networks and role characteristics can explain some of the impact that actors exert on the ouput of the Framework Programmes from the bottom-up, but more research needs to be done to measure their impact