CATALYST addresses the CAPS domain. CAPS (Collective Awareness Platforms for Sustainability and Social Innovation) is one of the research topics included into the FP7 and H2020 research funding programmes of the European Commission and is briefly defined below
For more information, please visit CAPS2020 website.
About CAPS
Collective Awareness Platforms for Sustainability and Social Innovation (CAPS) are ICT systems leveraging the emerging « network effect » by combining open online social media, distributed knowledge creation and data from real environments (« Internet of Things ») in order to create awareness of problems and possible solutions requesting collective efforts, enabling new forms of social innovation.
Collective Awareness Platforms are expected to support environmentally aware, grassroots processes and practices to share knowledge, to achieve changes in lifestyle, production and consumption patterns, and to set up more participatory democratic processes. Although there is consensus about the global span of the sustainability problems that are affecting our current society, including the economic models and the environment, there is little awareness of the role that each and every one of us can play to ease such problems, in a grassroots manner.
The vision is that individuals can collectively save the planet if they are given the opportunity to act socially, based on trusted information. The key is enabling access to trusted knowledge about the state of the environment, the actions underway in our Communities to improve that situation, and the impact of our own actions.
The distributed situational awareness enabled by such platforms can have very concrete impacts, for instance in empowering (and motivating) citizens to make informed decisions as consumers, or in fostering collective environmentally-savvy behavioural changes and a more direct democratic participation. These platforms are collective tools of social innovation, to design new visions of sustainable societies and environmentally sound solutions.
Concrete examples of technical functionalities include:
- Accessing real-time and easily understandable information on resource consumption
- Comparing individual lifestyles against some ecological / environmental benchmark
- Defining and accessing complex environmental models and simulations
- Promoting sustainable and collaborative consumption, as a basis for an effective Low-Carbon economy
What you can say about CAPS
Impact4you.eu platform is a place where European citizens can learn about Digital Social Innovation by familiarising with the CAPS projects, their aims and their tools. Besides bringing the CAPS projects to a wider audience, the platform invites the citizens to leave their feedback about the CAPS projects themes and services.
