Co-Creation Under Time Constraints. Designing and Evaluating a Conference-Compatible Collaboration Artifact in the ATTRACT Ecosystem

Abstract

Big-Science Research Infrastructures (BSRIs) generate high-quality inventions, yet societal impact frequently stalls because the complementary resources required for translation are dispersed across actors, facilities, evidence bases, and methods. Co-creation is increasingly promoted as a route from research to societal value, but in time-boxed settings such as conferences its outputs often remain difficult to compare, evaluate, and reuse. This paper presents and evaluates a conference-compatible artifact designed to structure how heterogeneous stakeholders combine dispersed ecosystem resources and to make the resulting outputs comparable and analysable beyond the room. The artifact—a structured facilitation protocol, a standardised digital submission form, and a post-hoc synthesis routine—was developed using a Design Science approach and piloted at the Final Conference of ATTRACT (Brussels, 2–3 July 2024), a Horizon cascade-funding project promoted by six Big-Science Research Infrastructures, a business school, a university, and an R&D&I industry association. Twenty-five multidisciplinary teams each produced a standardised submission, which we assessed with a rapid evaluation logic in which the form's fields map to four proxy indicators: cross-resource integration, pathway specificity, feasibility signals, and evidence/validation intent. All teams completed the instrument within the timebox, and 44% combined at least three of the four resource categories, confirming that comparable, analysable outputs can be produced by design rather than by assuming shared vocabulary. The indicator scores reveal a consistent gradient: teams articulated value pathways strongly (pathway specificity 7.68/8) but were progressively weaker at specifying implementation conditions (feasibility 6/8) and validation plans (evidence/validation intent 5.28/8)—24 of 25 teams expressed an intent to validate societal value, yet only 3 specified how. At portfolio level, ATTRACT Academy methodologies emerged as connective capacity (the shared methods that let heterogeneous teams work together, cited by 76% of teams), research facilities as legitimacy and convening anchors (lending credibility and a place to meet, not only technology), and the hardest gaps as clustering after proof-of-concept—at the "last mile" of integration, adaptation, and validation. The paper contributes a reusable co-creation methodology and an evaluation approach that turns time-boxed workshop outputs into material for portfolio learning: cross-team comparison that informs programme-level decisions in research-infrastructure innovation ecosystems.