COCTEAU stands for "Co-Creating the European Union". It's a project supported by the European Union whose objective is to involve citizens to cooperate alongside policy makers, contributing to build a better future.

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TRIGGER Experts Meeting
N o v e m b e r 2 0 2 0 | C E P S A N D P O L I M I T E A M
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement nº 822735.
This document reflects only the author’s view and the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.

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In the next 90 minutes we discuss together COCTEAU, a gamification tool aimed at “Co-Creating
the European Union”. The goal is to test the current version (still under development) and collect
feedback and comments
AGENDA OF THE SESSION
01 BRIEF PRESENTATION OF THE BACKGROUND OF OUR PROJECT
BRIEF PRESENTATION OF THE DIGITAL PROTOTYPE
COLLECTIVE DISCUSSION (OUR FAVORITE PART  )
02
03
GOAL OF THE DAY

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OUR TEAM
The Global Governance, Regulation, Innovation, Digital Economy (GRID) unit explores policy and regulatory
challenges in the areas of better regulation, internal market, research and innovation policy, competition
policy, industrial policy and competitiveness, global governance, sustainability, trade and the digital
economy
TODAY
CONSORTIUM
POLIMI is is the largest technical university in Italy. According to the QS World University Rankings for
subject area 'Engineering & Technology', it ranked in 2020 as the 20th best in the world. In this context, the
Team is represented by a multidisciplinary group of Researcher formed by the Department of Management
Engineering and the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering

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The ultimate objectives of TRIGGER are to provide EU institutions with knowledge and tools to enhance their
actorness, effectiveness and influence in global governance; and to develop new ways to harness the potential of
public engagement and participatory foresight in complex governance decisions, thereby also tackling emerging
trends such as nationalism, regionalism and protectionism. The TRIGGER consortium is composed of 14 partners,
including four non-EU countries. TRIGGER will achieve its objectives thanks to the combined effort of four research
sub-groups:
• One group focused on global and EU governance, which will create an unprecedented Atlas of Global
Governance REGulation and Europe’s AcTORness (AGGREGATOR)
• One group focused on the relationship between governance and emerging technologies
• One group dedicated to strategic foresight and public engagement, which will use new techniques such
as AI-enabled sentiment analysis and innovative public engagement methods to develop a tool on Co-
Creating the European Union (COCTEAU)
• One group specialised in dissemination and communication
ABOUT THE TRIGGER PROJECT

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• COCTEAU is a gamification tool that has the ambition to enable large-scale citizen engagement
and co-creation in support of policymakers
• The tool is currently undergoing a first piloting phase, but has the ambition to be scaled up to a
wider community level
• Currently it is being tested in two domains:
o The rise of Artificial Intelligence
o The decisions to be adopted at the local/regional level during the pandemic
• In future, we expect to test it also respect to the design of policies oriented towards sustainable
development (SDGs)
• COCTEAU will eventually be merged into another overarching tool dedicated to Public Engagement
for Responsive and Shared EU Strategies (PERSEUS) that still under development
WHAT IS COCTEAU?

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• Policymakers increasingly need user input in
approaching complex governance decisions in
conditions of uncertainty
• Distance citizens/decisionmakers
• Understanding the preconditions for
compliance and buy-in
• “Texturing” of public policy decisions
• Creating “déjà vu” effects
• Sharpening policy options and scenarios
• Linking short-term with medium- and long-
term decisions
• Adopt a subjective well-being approach to
policymaking
THE UNDERLYING PROBLEM(S)
TRIGGER
Limited
Participatory
Crowd-
Policing
Span of Engagement
Public
Consultation
Local Transnational
and Global
Int
ensit
y
of
engagement
Co-Design
and
Act
COCTEAU

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THREE STEP INCREMENTAL DESIGN APPROACH
A theoretical model based on literature review and experts
interviews
A paper-based model based on an in-person activity held
internally to the Consortium (Fiesole 2019 at EUI) where we
tested all the engagement mechanisms with real sessions
A digital mock-up developed with an agile approach that has
undergone three different feedback processes with different
communities (expert and non-expert users)
STEP
1
STEP
2
STEP
3

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STEP 1. THE THEORETICAL MODEL

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COCTEAU
STEP 1. THE THEORETICAL MODEL

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STEP 2. THE PAPER BASED MOCKUP
EUI, FIESOLE, FLORENCE 2019

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STEP 3. THE DIGITAL MOCKUP STRUCTURE

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COCTEAU MAIN GOALS
• Collect ideas and thoughts from communities through crowdsourcing and gamification
activities on a digital platform, this aims at helping policymakers to brainstorm more
sustainable policies regarding modern societal problems (wicked issues such as Covid-
19, AI, Internet policy, achieving the SDGs, etc.)
• Enhance governments’ capacity to foresee solutions that have a better fit between
policymakers preferences and people’s vision of the future through a sentiment-analysis
approach. This aims at creating a policymaking process that ultimately can result in
greater effectiveness and accountability for policymakers
• Improve the spontaneous communication between (local) governments and specific
communities, contributing to recover trust in public institutions and policymakers

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OR alternatively digit http://www.trigger-game.eu/?ref=freetest101ohgf
SCAN THE CODE TO PLAY LIVE WITH US

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 Free Access (No Registration Required, no ID tracking)
 The user can pick a Scenario
 ANSWER THE QUIZ ON THE SPECIFIC TOPIC (COVID-
19 IN OUR EXAMPLE)
 EXPRESS HER/HIS FEELINGS
 EXPLORE THE FEED MADE BY OTHER USERS MATCHES
 SHARE HER/HIS VISION
 PLAY A QUICK MATCH WITH ANOTHER USER
 PLAY AN IN-DEPTH MATCH WITH ANOTHER USER
COCTEAU MAIN ACTIVITIES

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THE USER PICKS A SCENARIO

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THE USER ANSWERS THE QUIZ
THE USER PICKS A SCENARIO

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THE USER EXPRESSES HER/HIS FEELINGS
THE USER ANSWERS THE QUIZ
THE USER PICKS A SCENARIO

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THE USER EXPLORES THE FEED
THE USER EXPRESSES HER/HIS FEELINGS
THE USER ANSWERS THE QUIZ
THE USER PICKS A SCENARIO

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THE USER EXPRESSES HIS VISION
THE USER EXPLORES THE FEED
THE USER EXPRESSES HER/HIS FEELINGS
THE USER ANSWERS THE QUIZ
THE USER PICKS A SCENARIO

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THE USER CAN PLAY A MATCH WITH
ANOTHER USER
THE USER EXPRESSES HIS VISION
THE USER EXPLORES THE FEED
THE USER EXPRESSES HER/HIS FEELINGS
THE USER ANSWERS THE QUIZ
THE USER PICKS A SCENARIO
O U R A P P R O A C H

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COCTEAU WIP
• Each user will have a personal profile (with the information about the member, an
avatar with a customizable image inside the profile, a form of “Status as Reward”
awarded depending on the activities performed)
• Option to provide the user with some statistics about their activities on the platform,
since displaying a comparison between them and the average of the community could
incentivize self-improvement
• Option to provide aggregated statistics made available to policymakers (a dashboard
illustrating analysed content to domain experts). The dashboard displays both
qualitative and quantitative analysis performed by the platform in different shapes (e.g.
graphs, numerical statistics, etc.). It allows to download all the displayed analysis in a
.pdf format

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COCTEAU OUTPUT FOR THE POLICYMAKER
• Currently COCTEAU is an engagement tool that aims to provide policymakers with useful
and actionable data and perspectives (it is not a technical tool)
• A framework that can be «customised» with respect to the challenge, target and
necessity (this version is not a predefined template but can tailored)
• Data, even if aggregated, needs a considerable effort in interpretation and
transformation into actionable outputs. No ready, perfect and fits-all solutions.
• Collected data are based on information that could be affected by tacit sources of bias
• Targeting diverse communities to test possible challenges is fundamental to avoid the
«filter bubble» effect

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WHAT IS YOUR OPINION?
We identified six areas of further improvement that can potentially enrich this
discussion. Please interpret them as a source of inspiration for the following
debate
• Overall concept and underlying approach
• User engagement process
• Users’ input
• Policymakers’ role
• Output for the policymakers
• Time Horizon of the challenges
• Typology of users

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QUESTIONS
• What is you opinion regarding the process of user engagement? Is the process
interesting and feasible? Do you think is something citizens could appreciate? Do you
have any suggestion about how to enrich it?
• Do you think the data collected (output) could be useful the policymakers? In which
context? Do you perceive the production of such data (inspired by future scenarios and
related sentiments) as something that could better inspire policymakers?
• What can be the role of the policymaker? Is the policymaker capable of generating such
challenges and manage a community of users? According to your opinion, do they need
gamification and engagement instruments? If yes, in which context?

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• What is the right time horizon for such challenges? We assume that challenges adopting
a medium-run horizon are the most suitable, do you agree? What is your opinion? What
is an example of challenge you would like to test with COCTEAU?
• What could be the most appropriate output for such a tool? Do you think the data
collected could be useful for policymakers? In which context?
• What is the most appropriate target user group for such tool? Do you think
communities of citizens are the most suitable target or do you think more expert-based
communities can benefit more from this mechanisms of engagement?
QUESTIONS

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T H A N K Y O U F O R Y O U R AT T E N T I O N
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement nº 822735.
This document reflects only the author’s view and the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.