Thursday 01

RRI Tools: what’s next?

Posted by RRI Tools on 01 Jan 1970

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 beyondThe 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.

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Monday 07

Showcase videos on successful RRI in the business sector

Posted by André Martinuzzi, coordinator of the LIV_IN project on 07 Feb 2022

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

 

Co-creation is a frequently used term in EU policies and programmes. It turns people into partners and takes the diversity of stakeholder interests into account. As a result, implementation is often done faster and with fewer conflicts.

In this video we present a toolkit for co-creation in corporate innovation processes. It addresses aspects of strategic planning, quality criteria, methods and practical considerations of effective and successful co-creation processes.

You can download the co-creation toolbox here 

 

Design Thinking is a well-established tool for innovation managers, which provides them with a better understanding of user needs and allows faster prototyping of results.

In the LIVING INNOVATION project we integrated key aspects of responsibility and sustainability into design-thinking with a sound scientific basis. We then tested our concept, which we call “Responsible Design Thinking”, in a series of workshops. 

In this video, we briefly introduce the concept and show you how you can apply it. 

 

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. 

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Monday 31

RRI Tools and LIV_IN joined forces to improve and expand contents of the RRI Toolkit focusing on industry needs

Posted by RRI Tools - Eva Zuazua Schücker on 31 Jan 2022

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.

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Wednesday 22

OECD's virtual conference on Technology in and for Society: Innovating well for inclusive transitions

Posted by RRI Tools - Eva Zuazua Schücker on 22 Dec 2021

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.

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Thursday 10

Join the SeeRRI Final Conference | Bringing RRI into Regional Planning

Posted by The SeeRRI team on 10 Jun 2021

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.

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Monday 14

The initiative #RRIinHE has launched a webinar series to foster the integration of RRI perspectives at the different levels of Horizon Europe

Posted by RRI Tools - Eva Zuazua Schücker on 14 Dec 2020

 

Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) refers to an approach rolled out in the EU Framework programmes 7 (FP7) and 8 (Horizon 2020) emphasising the on-going process of aligning research and innovation to societal values, needs and expectations. Funders in countries like the UK, Norway and the Netherlands have similar definitions.

RRI guides researchers and research conducting and funding organisations in anticipating the implications of their work, including relevant stakeholders upstream, and reflecting and responding to those stakeholders’ concerns and expectations. In this way, co-design and co-responsibility for the outcomes research and innovation can be facilitated, increasing societal uptake and acceptability of research and innovation.

Experiences from the concluded and ongoing RRI projects can inform the operationalisation of RRI in Horizon Europe as well as in other funding programmes that support inclusive research and innovation processes aligned with societal needs and values. The last decade of the RRI agenda also provides important resources for operationalizing the Open Science agenda in its broad sense, beyond Open Access and Open Data, and the co-creation and citizen science agendas.

The initiative “RRI in Horizon Europe” [#RRIinHE]

While the future of RRI in Horizon Europe is still rather uncertain, it is not as bleak as it appeared in 2019. Several advocates in the ERA have called for higher visibility of RRI in Horizon Europe. Moreover, the Orientations towards the first Strategic Plan for Horizon Europe keeps the door open for RRI and even indicates a ’home’ for RRI in Horizon Europe (in Reforming and Enhancing the European R&I system). However, there is still a need to continue to reinforce the importance of RRI and to help show how it can be implemented widely in Horizon Europe.

This is why a group of RRI scholars and practitioners have joined forces to launch the initiative "RRI in Horizon Europe" [#RRIinHE] with the aim of supporting the visibility and operationalisation of RRI in Horizon Europe. The core group consists of ...

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Wednesday 14

RRI Tools featured as a success experience in the Horizon 2020 EU Green Deal call

Posted by RRI Tools on 14 Oct 2020

European Green Deal Call: €1 billion investment to boost the green and digital transition

The European Commission is launching a €1 billion call for research and innovation projects that respond to the climate crisis and help protect Europe's unique ecosystems and biodiversity. The Horizon 2020-funded European Green Deal Call, which is already open for registration, will spur Europe's recovery from the coronavirus crisis by turning green challenges into innovation opportunities.

This Green Deal Call differs in important aspects from previous Horizon 2020 calls. Given the urgency of the challenges it addresses, it aims for clear, discernible results in the short to medium-term, but with a perspective of long-term change. There are fewer, but more targeted, larger and visible actions, with a focus on rapid scalability, dissemination and uptake.

Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth said: 

“The €1 billion European Green Deal call is the last and biggest call under Horizon 2020. With innovation at its heart, this investment will accelerate a just and sustainable transition to a climate-neutral Europe by 2050. As we do not want anyone left behind in this systemic transformation, we call for specific actions to engage with citizens in novel ways and improve societal relevance and impact.”

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Thursday 21

Virtual Dialogue Days | Democratizing Innovation - Fostering collaboration among the public sector, industry, academia & civil society

Posted by Frederik Langkjær & Matilde Trevisani, RiConfigure project on 21 May 2020

Context

Quadruple Helix (QH) innovation, the collaboration of actors from public sector, industry, academia and civil society, is a
concept to address complex problems and to innovate for the benefits of all involved. By emphasizing collaboration
across sectors and the active involvement of civil society, QH links to models such as Open Innovation 2.0 and Mode3. The EU project RiConfigure has engaged with a number of QH cases across Europe and Colombia and established first-hand knowledge how these work in practice. The current COVID-19 crisis creates new challenges for society while, at the same time, 'old' problems, such as the climate crisis, are not disappearing. Most of the ways addressing wicked problems are currently top-down and expert based. We thus aim to foster collaborative- and more democratic modes of innovation.

About the dialogue days

The RiConfigure 'dialogue days' are an open online process that brings together policy makers, practitioners and researchers working on and with QH innovation. Knowledge and experience of participants from innovation policy and praxis are linked with findings from an empirical analysis of European and Colombian cases of Quadruple Helix collaborations. The analyzed cases are innovation projects located in fields such as energy production, climate change adaption, connected mobility and smart labor. Together we will discuss what it needs for these type of innovation projects to thrive - particularly in these challenging times. Special emphasis will be given to learnings from COVID-19 challenges to innovation collaborations, both as impacts on and potential of innovation in corona times.

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Thursday 19

RRI Tools & LIV_IN have joined forces to improve and expand contents of the RRI Toolkit

Posted by Eva Zuazua Schücker - RRI Tools on 19 Mar 2020

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 ICT sector. The project is building capacity and instruments to support the integration of responsible innovation in industrial contexts. The ultimate goal is to shift attitudes towards responsible innovation from risk to opportunity, across sectors and target groups.

LIV_IN is organizing co-creation workshops with lead users and citizens, who are jointly working on solutions that meet user needs and leverage collective creativity to tackle societal challenges, in the areas of smart homes and smart health, and that may uncover new business opportunities. The project has also created a virtual community platform meant to serve as an interactive space for discussion, knowledge exchange and collaboration, open to experts and practitioners in digitization and responsibility.

RRI Tools and LIV_IN have joined forces 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.

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Wednesday 26

Including RRI in the development and implementation of Horizon Europe

Posted by E.-M. Forsberg, A. Gerber and S. G. Carson on 26 Feb 2020

** This post was last updated in March 9th **

The Coronavirus disease occured in a serious number of cases in Italy. The Italian government has ordered the closing of schools and universities as well as the cancellation of all cultural events and conferences until 3 April 2020. The Fit4RRI project decided to postpone its Final Summit, until 29-30 April 2020 (if possible), either in presence or virtually. The RRI Forethinkers workshop has therefore also been postponed and the promoters will decide their nexts steps in the coming days

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Now is a crucial time for joining forces to strengthen the visibility of RRI in Horizon Europe!

We therefore invite key RRI proponents, from key European RRI projects, and a range of ERA member states, to meet for a workshop (Rome, 20-21 March 2020) where the aim is to agree on, and coordinate, actions intended to help advance RRI in Horizon Europe. The workshop is organised with support from the Research Council of Norway and in collaboration with the European New HoRRIzon project, and with the kind support of the Fit4RRI organisers and the Sapienza Università di Roma which has offered to host the workshop at their premises, in connection with the Fit4RRI Summit. You can download the invitation to the workshop and the draft agenda from here (*)

Hereby we are sharing a position paper we intend to send to relevant shadow committee representatives for Horizon Europe, as well as other stakeholders that might be important for supporting the RRI agenda in Horizon Europe. Feel free to reuse parts of the document (or the whole!) for your own lobbying purposes.

POSITION PAPER 

Including RRI in the development and implementation of Horizon Europe 

E.-M. Forsberg, A. Gerber and S. G. Carson (February 2020)

 

Why RRI in Horizon Europe?
 
The European Union has an ambition to be a global leader in sustainable and value-driven research and innovation. The European Union, including the upcoming framework programme Horizon Europe, builds upon the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and has committed to the European Green Deal, where ‘the full range of instruments available under the Horizon Europe programme will support the research and innovation efforts needed’. It is stated that ‘Conventional approaches will not be sufficient. Emphasising experimentation, and working across sectors and disciplines, the EU’s research and innovation agenda will take the systemic approach needed to achieve the aims of the Green Deal. The Horizon Europe programme will also involve local communities in working towards a more sustainable future, in initiatives that seek to combine societal pull and technology push’. Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is an approach that can support this agenda. 
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