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Responsible research and innovation in action – ProGReSS at ESOF2016

Francesca Irene Cavallaro — Tue, 26 Jul 2016 13:37:59 +0000

The final dissemination event of PROGRESS took place at ESOF2016, where 6 RRI projects joined for the session: RRI in Action on 25 July 2016. Res Agora, Responsible Industry, Progress, Responsibility, RRI Tools and Responsibility provided snapshots of their findings and examples of RRI in action. The session was well attended and ably moderated by Vivienne Parry, OBE.

Left to right: Ignatio Lopez Verdeguer, Bernd Stahl, Vivienne Parry, Doris Schroeder, Mohamad Ajami and Ralf Lindner.

NanoEthics and Responsible Research and Innovation

Francesca Irene Cavallaro — Thu, 07 Jul 2016 12:42:55 +0000

The June 2016 issue of NanoEthics is a special issue with a focus on RRI, and it features contributions from our ProGReSS’ partners. You can read more here.

Inspiring findings to expand the RRI scene – the article

Francesca Irene Cavallaro — Wed, 04 May 2016 12:11:15 +0000

The Go4 projects – ProGReSS, Res-Agora, GREAT, and Responsibility – have co-authored an article presenting the project outcomes, lesson learned and recommendations for the up-take of RRI within science and innovation. The article, published on EUROSCIENTIST, is available here.

RRI Shaping New Horizons – Press Release is out!

Francesca Irene Cavallaro — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 10:17:43 +0000

A press release of the GO4 conference RRI Shaping New Horizons that took place in Brussels on January 14-15 is now available at the CORDIS website.

You can also download the document here.

Case Competition – Reducing the Risk of Exporting Unethical Research Practices

Francesca Irene Cavallaro — Tue, 15 Dec 2015 11:58:38 +0000

ProGReSS’ sister project, TRUST, develops tools to protect communities and individuals in low and middle income countries from exploitation in research. The TRUST website is currently under construction. Thanks to ProGReSS for assisting with dissemination of a competition.

Today, 15 December 2015, the TRUST project launches a bottom-up call for cases. Please click here to access the competition in English.

A French version of the call is available here.

The deadline for Step 1 is 2 March 2016.

TRUST Kick-off, October 2015, UNESCO, Paris
© UNESCO/P. Chiang-Joo

RRI – Shaping New Horizons 2016 Preliminary Programme

Francesca Irene Cavallaro — Thu, 26 Nov 2015 18:25:22 +0000

A preliminary programme of the Go4 conference that will take place in Brussels on January 2016 is now available and you can access it here!

You can find the event registration form at the website of our host, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC). Please follow this link http://www.eesc.europa.eu/?i=portal.en.events-and-activities-responsible-research-innovation

Responsible Research and Innovation in Europe and across the World

Francesca Irene Cavallaro — Wed, 18 Nov 2015 09:22:03 +0000

In January 2016 the four EU-funded projects, the “Go4”, will present key results of their work at a joint final conference, which will maximize their dissemination and potential impact. The conference, RRI Shaping New Horizons, will take place in Brussels at the premises of the European Economic and Social Committee.

There is an active debate on how best to translate the broad aims of the Innovation Union into principles and concrete actions for RRI. While the discourse on RRI is far from being settled, an impressive number of RRI activities have unfolded over the past few years. The European Union’s funding of dedicated RRI research projects and coordination activities has significantly contributed to this development.
The first wave of these projects, the Go4, will be ready to present their findings, conceptual developments, concrete messages and policy recommendations… Read more.

Two Examples of Successful Industry-Funded Research

Francesca Irene Cavallaro — Tue, 10 Nov 2015 11:37:45 +0000

On November 5-6, our colleague Michael Davis presented a paper at the John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values conference on the “Collaboration Conundrum”. The conference purpose can be summarized this way:

Industry currently funds the majority of research and development in the United States. But historical scandals involving industry-funded research, together with empirical evidence of correlations in some areas of science between industry funding and research results that favor industry have undermined trust in industry-funded science. Given that so much research funding comes from industry, it would be unrealistic and wasteful to dismiss this research across the board as unreliable and unconcerned with the public good. What to do? Government reports and scholarly publications extol the value of public participation in scientific research, and a number of funding agencies are now encouraging initiatives such as community-based participatory research. Could the participation of citizen groups in industry-funded research also increase the relevance, reliability, and acceptability of industry research? The Collaboration Conundrum Conference brings together industry representatives and experts on important policy issues such as genetically modified organisms, pollution and toxic chemicals, biomedical research, agricultural practices, and animal welfare to answer questions about how to bring the public and industry to do research for the public good.

Michael thought that the European experience with RRI would be a useful addition to this conference. Its organizers agreed. Following we report the abstract for his paper.

This paper answers a question posed in the Call for this conference: “Could the participation of citizen groups in industry-funded research also prove valuable—to increase the relevance, reliability, and acceptability of industry research?” The question, please note, asks whether it is possible for participation of citizen groups to improve industry-funded research, not how likely such participation is to improve such research. Since what is actual is also possible, the answer to the question posed is yes if there is at least one example of such improved research. While I believe there are many such examples, I shall offer only two here (“PressureTel” and “MY Brain Book”), the second providing redundancy should there be a serious objection to the first.

Special Track on Responsible Innovation in Chains and Networks – Call Open!

Francesca Irene Cavallaro — Tue, 27 Oct 2015 14:19:02 +0000

IFAMA 26^th Annual Conference, and WICaNeM 12^th Bi-Annual Conference will join effort for their next conference event that will take place in Aarhus, Denmark, on June 19 – 23, 2016. A special track on Responsible Innovation in Chains and Networks is scheduled, and the track coordinators are:

Vincent Blok (Wageningen University, The Netherlands)

Victor Scholten (Delft University, The Netherlands)

Rob Lubberink (Wageningen University, The Netherlands)

Abstract submissions are welcome, and the deadline is November 29, 2015.

In the context of the IFAMA/WICaNeM conference on chain and network management, the following research areas are of special interest:

Till now, most research is done from a policy or socio-ethical perspective and focusing on academic R&D environments, while most innovations take place in commercial or industrial settings (cf. Flipse 2012). It is precisely corporate innovation, which is underrepresented in current research on responsible innovation (cf. Blok and Lemmens, 2015; Blok, Hoffmans and Wubben, 2015).

Nowadays, it is widely acknowledged that only a few firms have all resources and networks available to innovate in isolation. Most firms innovate in networks and/or together with their supply chain partners. This raises the question how collaborating firms share the responsibility for the innovation they work on. It is precisely innovation in chains and networks, which is underrepresented in current research on responsible innovation.

Although all industries and sectors can be involved in responsible innovation, sector specific differences are not taken into account in current research and some sectors are underrepresented. It is precisely the agri-food sector, which is underrepresented in current research on responsible innovation. Nanotechnology and ICT for instance are fields of research which are often mentioned in the responsible innovation literature, but in biotechnology, medical technology and food technology we observe similar issues concerning health and/or privacy. Insights from several industries and sectors can help to develop a better conceptualization of responsible innovation and to distinguish sector-specific characteristics of its application.

Through the concept of responsible innovation, the focus of innovation processes shifts towards societal challenges. These are converted into business opportunities to create new concepts, business models and ways of operating, as well as more efficient approaches to resource exploitation and energy consumption. These opportunities require a different approach to problem solving which diverts significantly from the way we think about solutions, technologies and applications today. The question is to what extent SMEs and start-ups can benefit from these opportunities for responsible innovation, assuming that they are not constrained by a dominant logic, existing heuristics and current practices to problem solving (Scholten and vd Duin, 2015).

Responsible innovation presupposes that business decisions with regard innovation activities are at least partly ethically motivated (Waldman and Galvin, 2008) with strong concerns for others over the own interests of the company (Jones, et al. 2007). However, the responsibility of a business decision exists only if there is “a clear and directly foreseeable return on investment” (Waldman and Siegel, 2008: 119). Consequently, the question is raised how companies, especially SMEs, make decisions and organize their innovation process to the extent it is considered more responsible?

For further questions and remarks, please feel free to contact the track coordinators Vincent Blok (vincent.blok@wur.nl) and Victor Scholten (V.E.scholten@TUdelft.nl)

RRI – Shaping New Horizons. Brussels 2016, January 14-15. Save the date!

Francesca Irene Cavallaro — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 12:48:47 +0000

The Go4 projects – GREAT, Res-Agora, Responsibility, and ProGReSS - the projects funded in February 2013 under the FP7 SiS work programme 2011, will present the results of their work and research in a joint event that will take place in Brussels next year, on January 2016.

This is a Save the Date! announcement for all those interested in knowing more about the emerging concept of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), existing approaches, tools or mechanisms that facilitate the uptake of RRI across Europe and beyond.

The conference concept note can be accessed here. More and detailed information about the conference agenda, venue, guests and more will be published soon!