This is a report of a one-day conference which brought together around 50 participants from 15 countries as part of the EU-funded PROSO project (19th June 2017). The conference brought together a broad range of relevant stakeholders from across Europe and beyond. These included research policy makers, research management and funding organizations, business and industry organizations, science education and communication actors, researchers, and third sector organizations.The aim of the conference was to get to know the views, insights and experiences of these different actor-groups in regard to the forces, structures, and ideas that encourage or discourage societal engagement with R&I, and to encourage mutual learning and facilitate networking across actor-groups and countries in this regard. The conference combined input by the PROSO project with small group discussions.