Practical tools to build trust in biotechnology
B-TRUST is a Horizon Europe project that developed a co-creation programme to foster trust in biotechnology across the agri-food and bio-based sectors. The results are now available: free, ready-to-use manuals and toolboxes to help you involve stakeholders in the development, regulation and implementation of new technologies.
A co-creation programme in four phases
New technologies can change the world in ways that are hard to predict. Whether they succeed depends not only on the science, but on whether the people affected by them trust and accept them.
The B-TRUST co-creation programme helps you involve all relevant stakeholders, from producers and regulators to consumers and those speaking for the environment, so that decisions about new technologies are relevant, feasible and acceptable for the majority of those involved. It helps you pinpoint the hurdles holding back acceptance, the cues to overcome them, and concrete solutions: from communication strategies to regulatory interventions and conditions for implementation.
The programme follows four phases. Pick the manual written for your sector, follow the steps, and use the toolboxes whenever you need hands-on support.
1. Explore
Map the potential consequences of your innovation and the stakeholders who influence it or are affected by it.
2. Involve
Engage your most relevant stakeholders and listen: how do they see your innovation and its implications in real life?
3. Asses
Analyse the input to identify and prioritise the hurdles, the cues to overcome them, and untapped potential.
4. Co-design
Work with stakeholders to design and validate solutions, improvements and mitigation strategies, ready for implementation.
Each manual walks you through the four phases step by step, with the results to expect, key attention points, and practical tips and tricks. The programme is the same, each version is tailored to a different starting point. Choose yours.
The manuals: a step-by-step guide for your sector
Each manual walks you through the four phases step by step, with the results to expect, key attention points, and practical tips and tricks. The programme is the same, each version is tailored to a different starting point. Choose yours.
Manual 1 — For industry and public communication channels
Who it’s for: companies and communication professionals in the agri-food and bio-based sectors.
Use this manual to explore how your own innovations will be received. It guides you through engaging stakeholders to finetune market acceptance, communication narratives and market positioning, so you can spot acceptance issues early and address them before launch.
Manual 2 — For academic and commercial research organisations
Who it’s for: researchers in academic and commercial research organisations.
Use this manual to explore the applicability and viability of a new innovation, and to give direction to your research. By involving stakeholders early, you learn what matters to those who will use or be affected by your work, increasing its real-world impact.
Manual 3 — For policy makers and funding bodies
Who it’s for: policy makers and funding bodies.
Use this manual to guide and finetune the regulatory set-up linked to new innovations, including inclusive and holistic decision-making on funding and subsidies. It shows you how to bring all relevant voices to the table, so that policies and funding choices are widely supported.
Manual 4 — For policy makers: an inclusive risk–benefit assessment
Who it’s for: policy makers, regulators and risk assessors.
Use this manual to bring stakeholder input into a risk–benefit assessment. It shows how the co-creation programme plugs into multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), a structured method for weighing the risks and benefits of an innovation, giving you a clearer view of how different stakeholders are affected.
The toolboxes: hands-on support for every phase
The toolboxes give you practical tools and step-by-step walkthroughs for specific parts of the programme. Each one supports a particular phase, use them alongside your manual.
Tool 1 — Stakeholder mapping
Explore phase
Who influences your innovation, and who is affected by it? This tool walks you through two brainstorming sessions to map your full stakeholder ecosystem, including those you might otherwise overlook, and to evaluate each stakeholder’s influence and how strongly they are affected. The result: a solid basis for deciding who to involve.
Tool 2 — Consequences mapping
Explore phase
What could your innovation change, for better or worse? This tool helps you map the potential consequences of your innovation and its alternatives: positive (benefits), negative (risks) or neutral, direct or indirect, short- or long-term. You also map mitigation measures for the negative ones, giving you a complete picture before engaging stakeholders.
Tool 3 — Co-creation toolbox
Involve phase
Ready to listen to your stakeholders? This toolbox helps you set up and run co-creation sessions, with seven ready-to-use exercises, from icebreakers and association exercises to scenario thinking and role playing. For each exercise you’ll find the timing, the materials needed and the questions it answers, plus guidance on analysing what you hear.
Tool 4 — Communication & recruitment toolbox
Involve phase
Getting the right people at the table is harder than it sounds, those you want are not always those who are easy to get. This toolbox helps you reach beyond the usual suspects: targeting the right profiles, avoiding self-selection bias, offering the right incentives, and communicating in a neutral and transparent way.
Tool 5 — Co-design toolbox
Co-design phase
Time to turn insights into solutions. This toolbox helps you set up co-design sessions where stakeholders work with you on responses to the key hurdles, through structured rounds of idea generation, prioritisation and refinement. It also covers preparation, session flow and how to validate the solutions before implementation.
White paper: towards inclusive risk–benefit assessment
Towards Inclusive Risk–Benefit Assessment: Integrating Co-Creation for Trustworthy Decision-Making in Biotechnology
Who it’s for: decision-makers, regulators and risk assessors.
Traditional risk–benefit assessments are expert-driven and may miss the perspectives of those directly affected. This white paper presents the B-TRUST approach: integrating stakeholder-driven co-creation into risk–benefit assessment to capture direct and indirect consequences, including socio-economic and cultural dimensions, and support more robust, transparent and widely accepted policy and regulatory decisions.
Looking for the full report? Download the complete final report, including all manuals, toolboxes and the white paper, from our Resources section.