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.

The SeeRRI project has worked tirelessly for three years to find a framework that allows territories to put Responsible Research and Innovation principles at the core of their smart specialisation stratregy. Financed by Horizon2020, the project has piloted its process in three different territories: B30 (Spain), Lower Austria, and Nordland (Norway), and has counted on the participation of twelve partner organisations from five different countries. 

As it is now coming to an end, the SeeRRI project will culminate in the Final Conference “Bringing RRI into Regional Planning: From Theory to SeeRRI”, which will take place in the beautiful modernist building “Casa Convalescència” in Barcelona on the 29th and 30th of September. The Conference will bring together policymakers, regional stakeholders, researchers, members of SeeRRI and related projects, EU officials, citizens interested in the future of Europe, and inspiring guest speakers for two days of knowledge-sharing and lively debates about the future of responsible regional planning and responsible research and innovation (RRI) in Europe and beyond.

(*) Post last updated on June 3rd 2021 - the detailed agenda of the event has been added

CONTEXT

Traditionally the innovation process has been driven by the industry, the public sector and/or research. However, increasingly, it is acknowledged that actors from the sector of civil society may bring valuable knowledge to innovation and it is becoming necessary to include these undervalued actors in order to let innovative solutions flourish.

Models like Open Innovation 2.0, Mode 3 or Quadruple Helix (QH) innovation provide theoretical frames for cross sector collaboration that incorporates civil society. The idea of these inclusive innovation models is the following: by bringing different voices together in new types of collaborations, blind spots are avoided because every actor has specific competences and focus points. Also, it is assumed that with an active co-creation process with civil society it is possible
to find more holistic and appropriate solutions.

The RiConfigure project has been dedicated to empirically investigate such actions and to make cross-sectoral collaborations thrive and overcome the challenges that the actors might face.

ABOUT THE EVENT

The RiConfigure final event is an open online event that serve a double purpose. On the one hand, it brings to the public the main results of the project in gaining a more realistic understanding of real-life Quadruple Helix Collaborations (QHCs).  On the other hand, the final event aims to create a space to discuss the roles QH may have in national and EU Research & Innovation landscapes and particularly for the Horizon Europe (HE) Programme.

All participants will be involved in co-creating an agenda on future research directions, policy improvements and actions to be taken to make QHCs progress from a normative concept to a well-established social practice in the context of the forthcoming HE framework.

(*) 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.

(*) Post last updated the 13th 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 Dialogik has launched an online working group on inclusive innovation and is organizing a series of workshops. The first one will be taking place on April 28th and will be focused on co-creation with families. Two cases will be presented, an experience by De Monfort University with families from Leicester co-creating future home technologies in the context of LIV_IN, and the PULSE exhibition, an initiative by the Experimentarium science center, which is part of the RRI Tools collection of inspiring practices.

How to co-create innovations with low-income families | webinar on April 28th 2021 (15:00 – 16:30 CEST)

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

Presenting two cases of involving families from various backgrounds, you can explore how co-creation with experts and citizens works and why inclusive innovation with families is worth considering.

(*) Post last updated the 13th of May 2021 - link to the recording of the workshop 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 LIV_IN project guarantees the link and the continuous and efficient transfer of learnings between LIV_IN and RRI Tools. The work developed under the umbrella of LIV_IN is serving to enrich and improve contents of the RRI Toolkit focusing on industry needs, and to give higher visibility to LIV_IN and its activities among the R&I community.

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 digitization and responsibility.

In this context Atos & "la Caixa" Foundation have joined forces to identify and collect good practice applying Responsible Innovation (RI) methods and practices to support the design and creation of smart eHealth solutions, and are now organizing a workshop that will take place on March 30th (16.00-17.30 CEST)

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

The main objective of the workshop is to share experiences and learn about successful examples of smart technologies used to support eHealth, healthy living, and preventive health, and to collect evidence of the (positive) effect of applying Responsible Innovation methodologies. 

Seven use case champions have been invited to talk about their projects and to exchange information about their approach to Responsible Innovation and the benefits they obtained. After the presentations an open discussion among the use cases champions will be facilitated by Lydia Montandon and Diana Carbonero, from Atos.

Our courses focus on a novel concept that intends to diversify innovation, the collaboration between the different sectors or helices of society: academia, industry, public sector and civil society. This approach, also known as Quadruple helix collaborations (QHC), helps address complex issues, which are a common base in many innovation processes. But it also poses great challenges. Building on experience and knowledge, our courses identify a set of aspects that facilitate or hinder such collaborations and provide tools, methodologies and strategic guidelines that support the design, implementation and evaluation of quadruple helix collaborations for innovation

For two years, the practical experience of the European project RiConfigure on collaborative innovation has been closely followed and structured to create a set of training materials. This experience comes from social experiments, comparative analysis and dialogue events with innovation practitioners and policy makers. With the valuable learnings from the project, the University Pompeu Fabra (UPF, Spain) and Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft (LBG, Austria) have designed and developed three training programmes.