Last June, the CosmoCaixa Barcelona (Spain) hosted the first public conference on Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). It was organized by the RRI Tools project, led by "la Caixa" Foundation and the IrsiCaixa AIDS Research Institute.

Nearly one hundred people attended the event where different experts explained how to incorporate the six policy agendas of RRI — gender equality, ethics, governance, public engagement, science education and open access — into their proposals for the European Commission programme Horizon2020. The event was jointly organized by the IrsiCaixa AIDS Research Institute, "la Caixa" Foundation with the collaboration of the Catalan Association of Public Universities (ACUP), the Catalan Agency for Management of University and Research Grants (AGAUR) and the Catalan Association of Science Communication (ACCC).

This event is part of the outreach programme that the Spanish Hub is implementing throughout the country to raise awareness and foster reflection on RRI. Training and dissemination activities aimed at different stakeholders were held. To facilitate further dissemination, all presentations of the conference have been published at the conference website.

Ten local inspiring practices on RRI were also presented. All of them had in common the collaboration between different stakeholders, and they included funding programs for research & innovation (R&I) projects, examples of participatory governance, a living lab, public debates on R&I and educational programs, among others. During the event, the coordinators of RRI Tools also presented the quality criteria standards on RRI — developed by the Athena Institute UV Amsterdam University – and the report published by University College London (UCL) on the results of the consultation workshops, which were organized by the RRI Tools Hubs in more than 30 European cities in 2014.

In the frame of its mission to disseminate RRI, "la Caixa" Foundation and IrsiCaixa have recently also initiated their participation in two new projects on RRI and higher education: "Enhancing Responsible Research and Innovation through Curricula in Higher Education (EnRRICH)" and "Higher Education Institutions & Responsible Research and Innovation (HEIRRI)". They will be implemented basically in universities and have the aim of integrating RRI in higher education.

Josep Carreras and Rosina Malagrida

Josep Carreras and Rosina Malagrida work on RRI Tools at the IrsiCaixa AIDS Research Institute in Barcelona, the RRI Tools Hub for Spain.