More than 150 people from 43 countries came together in Vienna last April 27th for the second and last HEIRRI Conference celebrated under the title “Education towards a responsible society, transforming universities through RRI”. Professionals from all over the world met in Vienna for an enriching and thought-provoking conference full of participation and interactive sessions. 

Now that the HEIRRI project is getting closer to its end, the conference was the best occasion to present the work and results accomplished in these three years, and a great moment to consolidate the community committed to the teaching of responsible practices in research and innovation. 

The HEIRRI training programmes and formative materials were first launched at the Conference. They are mainly based on innovative and participative methodologies, following a “Problem-based learning” approach, and designed for different educational levels: bachelor’s, master’s, PhD, MOOC, Summer schools, train-the-trainer, secondary school teachers. The training programmes are presented in multimedia formats and can be found online and in open access in the RRI Tools platform

These resources give higher education institutions (HEI) the tools to strengthen their researchers’ and innovators’ capacity for anticipation, reflexivity and engagement; aiming to train citizens and not just only highly skilled workers. Professors, university authorities, researchers, managers, politicians and all other people interested in higher education are encouraged to explore the HEIRRI resources, adapt them to their contexts, edit them freely, try them out and integrate them in their teaching practices. We invite users to share their experiences with the HEIRRI training resources through the RRI Tools Forum

As part of the training materials, HEIRRI is developing several very compelling videos, dealing with some of the grand challenges faced by society today, to be used when teaching and learning about Responsible Research and Innovation, to foster discussion and reflections around key aspects of RRI. Two of these videos have been presented until now, one about Ageing, the other about Food

More information:

• HEIRRI Booklet - “Teaching and learning RRI”
• Summary of tweets #HEIRRIconf
• Album – pictures of the 2nd HEIRRI Conference
• Join the HEIRRI Community here