Who are you doing it for? For whom do you make your products? Develop your services? Whom does your research serve? Probably in part for yourself, because you like doing it, but above all for the consumer, the citizens, and society.
To know whether you are on a the right track, it is always a good idea to, now and then, ask the people on the receiving end how they see things. Or even better: to involve them in the development of future products, services or research.
You can involve consumers or citizens in research and development in dozens of ways, and there is no golden formula that covers every aspect. Each method has its advantages and limitations, and usually combining several of them gives the best results. It all depends on the development stage you are in, the situation, and the questions you have. Do you want to know what kind of people you appeal to? How big that group is? Does the market really need this type of product at all, or should I perhaps take a completely different track? And if so, how? Do people lose sleep over this challenge or are there already enough alternatives that respond to it?
Together with you, we draw out a trajectory that best suits your case and budget. You can collect data with quantitative surveys, or find out opinions and perceptions with qualitative research. You can approach people individually through interviews, or let them brainstorm together in a co-creation session. You can let people test things, taste and smell products, or put them to work to get to know their environment better. You can involve people online and in real life. Our solid technical and scientific background allows us to think along with you to explore the challenges and opportunities in depth, and to develop an approach to find an answer to your questions.
We implement your trajectory with the best results in mind, by ourselves or together with our partners. After all, asking questions is easy, but asking the right questions, in the right context, to the right people, and formulated in the right way, that's another matter!
To get the right people to the table, we can count on our own pool of volunteers - our 'inventors' - with different backgrounds and profiles, who can express their thoughts unbiased. On top of that, our partners also have a small army of volunteers who are only too happy to give their opinion.
Secondly, we set up surveys, interviews and co-creation sessions in such a way that they provide real and honest feedback, without steering or falling into the trap of wishful thinking.
So what can we do for you?
Qualitative research
Quantitative research
What topics do we work on?
Because of our background, we are particularly well versed in certain markets and topics, and we also focus on them in terms of understanding and engaging consumers. We're talking about:
- Food and drinks, and with everything that goes along with it
- Sectors related to food, such as packaging
- All kinds of fast moving consumer goods, like cosmetics, household products, etc.
- Innovative agricultural products and short supply chain concepts
- Other bio-based products, such as materials
- Food, health and nutrition
- Biotechnology
- Pet food
Charlotte and Veerle organized a co-creation session for La Confiance around the new VitaBran bran biscuits. This workshop was without any doubt a real eye-opener and gave us a lot of new insights, which we immediately started working on! It is a step forward for us to understand our customer even better.
Leo Borms, Owner, La Confiance
The co-creation session set up by Veerle and Charlotte gave us a lot of inspiration to put together our citizen science test kit - which was definitely necessary! In addition, we have also learned that interacting and co-creating with citizens is not that easy and straightforward. In all respects, it was a very pleasant and instructive collaboration!
Kristof Brijs, Innovation Manager, KULeuven
