RRI Tools is a flagship project funded by the European Commission (EC) under the 7th Framework Program. RRI Tools was set up to foster the development of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) across Europe by means of an ambitious training, advocacy, and dissemination programme. It´s wide European coverage was possible due to the exceptionally large multidisciplinary consortium of RRI Tools, consisting of 26 partner institutions active in 30 countries from all over Europe and led by "la Caixa" Foundation.

The main outcome of the project was the development of an interactive digital platform - the RRI Toolkit - gathering a wealth of resources to help stakeholders across Europe in developing their understanding of, and capacity to put RRI into practice. Designed as an interactive, participatory Toolkit, it is open to the community, so that every actor can showcase their own practices and resources and get inspired by those of others. 

The project officially ended in December 2016, and since then, the project´s coordinator - “la Caixa” Foundation - has brought its commitment to keep the RRI Toolkit updated and running and it´s dissemination channels active beyond expected. 

The RRI Toolkit has become a popular resource for the R&I community in Europe, and beyond. The platform has a loyal community of users that continuously visits and uses it as a proficient and trustworthy repository. In social media, being one of the most followed projects in its field, the RRI Tools channels have brought together a considerable number of followers and community of action. Along these years we improved and expanded contents of the platform. Many new resources have been uploaded into the resource repository and many fruitful collaborations with different EU projects and other international initiatives have taken place.

Now with the arrival of the 9th Framework Programme – Horizon Europe (2021-2027), RRI Tools is entering into a new phase.

Based on more than three years of experience the EU funded project LIVING INNOVATION presents major outcomes in 9 showcase videos. 

Many of them will be the starting point of future exchange and networking, as the project will continue to organize online dialogues and virtual innovation corners (for upcoming events please visit our news section)

This video presents a new and business-oriented narrative on Responsible Innovation based on three elements: 

• Managing Impacts of innovation means to innovate with positive impact and accept responsibility beyond markets. It increases a company’s value and reduces the risks of sunken costs and societal follow up costs.
• Co-creating Innovation refers to a company’s responsibility to put societal needs in the center of innovation processes and to innovate in a truly inclusive manner. It contributes to more and better fitting ideas and tackles grand societal challenges.
• A systemic perspective is a company’s responsibility for future-oriented solutions and drives innovation by understanding interrelationships. It allows individual companies to become an industry game-changer and increases societal resilience and sustainability at the same time.

These three elements link the societal benefits of RRI with concrete business cases and highlight the deriving opportunities for companies. More details can be found in the LIV_IN Policy Brief “A New Narrative For Responsible Innovation”

As part of the LIVING INNOVATION project, we launched a series of webinars to share the diverse experiences, raise awareness of innovative teaching concepts and to encourage teachers to do more than just teach via Zoom and MS Teams. We discovered some truly innovative applications of virtual, augmented and extended reality which have great potential for the future.

In this video we present the advantages of extended reality (XR) in teaching and training and suggest a virtual one-stop shop that documents these benefits and acts as a reference platform for the various applications. It should take stock of already existing solutions, develop innovative applications from early prototypes to market-ready products, and support their dissemination. 

Thanks to this collaboration we reshaped and enriched those sections of the RRI Tools Platform specifically devoted to industry and business - the introductory landing page for industry and the how-to application guidelines - to make them more useful and attractive for this sector. 

Stakeholder landing pages were designed with the aim to provide a “soft” landing for newcomers, introducing the RRI concept to each stakeholder group. These introductory pages outline what RRI means in simple terms, addressing the main benefits, needs and concerns of each group in their own language. Each tailored page contains a selection of recommended resources and links to the How-to application guidelines. We adapted the landing page for business and industry to the new narrative on responsible innovation developed by LIV_IN. The new design outlines key ideas associated with the concept of responsible innovation and provides a schematic overview of the responsible innovation principles

The How-to application guidelines are meant to provide practical guidance on how to address common challenges faced by industry and corporates when trying to put responsible innovation into practice. Thanks to our collaboration with LIVIN, we were able to develop several new how-to guidelines [How to boost creativity and involve people | How to consider future impacts | The business case for Responsible Innovation | Inclusive innovation] based on work and learnings from the project and to enrich with additional contents some of the already existing ones.

A couple of weeks ago - on 6-7 December, 2021 - took place an international (virtual) conference on Technology in and for Society, organized by the OECD. During these two days, more than 650 participants joined from more than 60 countries around the world. 

The event brought together discussions on the transformative potential of emerging technology with the necessity of good governance. Participants asked "how can we innovate both more and well, i.e. within inclusive processes, with values at the centre, and with lasting positive impact?" The conference explored the values, design principles, and a possible practical agenda for leveraging good governance for critical sociotechnical transformations. 

An initial set of findings from the conference are set out below and over the coming weeks, the OECD will prepare a conference report to help inform their future work and efforts to meet the urgent needs of policymakers and citizens.

(*) Post last updated the 27th of May 2021 - link to the recording of the webinar has been added

The LIVING INNOVATION project brings together 14 partners from all over Europe, including major industry leaders, civil society and research organizations to co-develop more responsible, inclusive and sustainable approaches to innovation in the areas of smart homes and smart health. The participation of "la Caixa" Foundation in the project guarantees the link and efficient transfer of learnings between LIV_IN and RRI Tools. 

LIV_IN has created a virtual community platform and launched different joint actions meant to serve as an interactive space for discussion, knowledge exchange and collaboration, open to experts and practitioners.

In this context De Monfort University & "la Caixa" Foundation have joined forces to organize an online dialogue to explore the future of Public Health and Responsible Innovation in a post-Covid Europe - that will be taking place on May 20th (14.00-17.20 CEST)

(*) Recording of the webinar is now online - see here

As Covid-19 will remain a part of our lives for the next years, the role of public and preventative health has been rarely so important. Digital tools and technologies offer great opportunities to the healthcare sector. However, the challenges and risks in this aspect have to be considered critically.
 
The webinar will focus on:

• the challenges and dilemmas for Responsible Innovation in the public health sector;
• bringing together community and commercial perspectives;
• helping to chart a responsible and sustainable way forward for innovation in public health.