Innovating Responsibly—Challenges and Future Research Agendas

Innovation involves creating value from ideas, but this raises the question of for whom is the value created? Especially when there is growing recognition of global challenges such as poverty, inequality, aging population or availability of quality healthcare [1], responsible research and innovation (RRI) is suggested to govern innovation development. The core principles of RRI suggest broader stakeholder inclusion during the decisionmaking process, the anticipation of societal needs and reflection of concerns and a capacity to build flexibility into innovation wherever possible [2–4]. Aligning with these principles calls for new innovation policies [5,6] without which there may be problems; in particular the failure of institutions to include all layers of society into decision-making processes can lead to a sense of an individual powerlessness. While Sustainability 2021, 13, 3215. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13063215 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability Sustainability 2021, 13, 3215 2 of 6 several researchers claim that RRI is advantageous for businesses [14], other studies point to the negative effects of RRI on innovation processes [15]. With this background, we suggest that responsibility lies with individual actors [10] and that responsible decisions need to be undertaken at the firm level [16]. We suggest there is scope for ‘responsible innovation’ (RI) approach, which has a more fine-grained focus on the innovation itself [17,18] and may be more amenable to operationalization. In this SI we invited theoretical and empirical contributions that focus on how firms organize their entrepreneurial and innovation process to ensure responsible outcomes.publishedVersio

Comparison of 5-year progression of retinitis pigmentosa involving the posterior pole among siblings by means of SD-OCT: a retrospective study

The blockchain technology promises to transform finance, money and evengovernments. However, analyses of blockchain applicability and robustness typicallyfocus on isolated systems whose actors contribute mainly by running the consensusalgorithm. Here, we highlight the importance of considering trustless platformswithin the broader ecosystem that includes social and communication networks. Asan example, we analyse the flash-crash observed on 21st June 2017 in the Ethereumplatform and show that a major phenomenon of social coordination led to acatastrophic cascade of events across several interconnected systems. We proposethe concept of “emergent centralisation” to describe situations where a single systembecomes critically important for the functioning of the whole ecosystem, and arguethat such situations are likely to become more and more frequent in interconnectedsocio-technical systems. We anticipate that the systemic approach we propose willhave implications for future assessments of trustless systems and call for the attentionof policy-makers on the fragility of our interconnected and rapidly changing world

Identification of the Photoreceptor Transcriptional Co-Repressor SAMD11 as Novel Cause of Autosomal Recessive Retinitis Pigmentosa

Retinitis pigmentosa (RP), the most frequent form of inherited retinal dystrophy is characterized by progressive photoreceptor degeneration. Many genes have been implicated in RP development, but several others remain to be identified. Using a combination of homozygosity mapping, whole-exome and targeted next-generation sequencing, we found a novel homozygous nonsense mutation in SAMD11 in five individuals diagnosed with adult-onset RP from two unrelated consanguineous Spanish families. SAMD11 is ortholog to the mouse major retinal SAM domain (mr-s) protein that is implicated in CRX-mediated transcriptional regulation in the retina. Accordingly, protein-protein network analysis revealed a significant interaction of SAMD11 with CRX. Immunoblotting analysis confirmed strong expression of SAMD11 in human retina. Immunolocalization studies revealed SAMD11 was detected in the three nuclear layers of the human retina and interestingly differential expression between cone and rod photoreceptors was observed. Our study strongly implicates SAMD11 as novel cause of RP playing an important role in the pathogenesis of human degeneration of photoreceptors.This work was supported by several grants from the Spanish Centre for Biomedical Network Research on Rare Diseases (CIBERER)(06/07/0036), Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII, Spanish Ministry of Health)/FEDER, including FIS (PI013/00226) and RETICS (RD09/0076/00101 and RD12/0034/0010), Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO), including FEDER (BFU2012-36845), and BIO2011-27069, Conselleria de Educació of the Valencia Community (PROMETEOII/2014/025), Spanish National Organization of the Blind (ONCE) and the Spanish Fighting Blindness Foundation (FUNDALUCE). M.C. was sponsored by the Miguel Servet Program for Researchers in the Spanish National Health Service (CP12/03256) and RSA by Sara Borrel Postdoctoral Program (CD12/00676), both from the ISCIII/FEDER. A.A-F. was sponsored by CIBERER, RPC is supported by Fundación Conchita Rábago (FCR), L.C is sponsored by RETICS (RD12/0034/0010) from ISCIII and L.d.S. was supported by CAPES Foundation, Ministry of Education of Brazil

Going it alone won’t work! The relational imperative for social innovation in social enterprises

Shifts in the philosophy of the “state” and a growing emphasis on the “Big Society” have placed an increasing onus on a newly emerging organizational form, social enterprises, to deliver innovative solutions to ease societal issues. However, the question of how social enterprises manage the process of social innovation remains largely unexplored. Based on insights from both in-depth interviews and a quantitative empirical study of social enterprises, this research examines the role of stakeholder relationships in supporting the process of social innovation within social enterprises. We find that social enterprises are adept at working with their stakeholders in the ideation stage of social innovation. In contrast, they often fail to harness knowledge and expertise from their partners during the social innovation implementation phase. Consequently, we propose a social innovation–stakeholder relationship matrix that provides social enterprises in particular with insight for developing stakeholder relationships to achieve their social innovation missions

The Cis-regulatory Logic of the Mammalian Photoreceptor Transcriptional Network

The photoreceptor cells of the retina are subject to a greater number of genetic diseases than any other cell type in the human body. The majority of more than 120 cloned human blindness genes are highly expressed in photoreceptors. In order to establish an integrative framework in which to understand these diseases, we have undertaken an experimental and computational analysis of the network controlled by the mammalian photoreceptor transcription factors, Crx, Nrl, and Nr2e3. Using microarray and in situ hybridization datasets we have produced a model of this network which contains over 600 genes, including numerous retinal disease loci as well as previously uncharacterized photoreceptor transcription factors. To elucidate the connectivity of this network, we devised a computational algorithm to identify the photoreceptor-specific cis-regulatory elements (CREs) mediating the interactions between these transcription factors and their target genes. In vivo validation of our computational predictions resulted in the discovery of 19 novel photoreceptor-specific CREs near retinal disease genes. Examination of these CREs permitted the definition of a simple cis-regulatory grammar rule associated with high-level expression. To test the generality of this rule, we used an expanded form of it as a selection filter to evolve photoreceptor CREs from random DNA sequences in silico. When fused to fluorescent reporters, these evolved CREs drove strong, photoreceptor-specific expression in vivo. This study represents the first systematic identification and in vivo validation of CREs in a mammalian neuronal cell type and lays the groundwork for a systems biology of photoreceptor transcriptional regulation

Genome-wide analyses identify common variants associated with macular telangiectasia type 2

Idiopathic juxtafoveal retinal telangiectasis type 2 (macular telangiectasia type 2; MacTel) is a rare neurovascular degenerative retinal disease. To identify genetic susceptibility loci for MacTel, we performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) with 476 cases and 1,733 controls of European ancestry. Genome-wide significant associations (P < 5 × 10−8) were identified at three independent loci (rs73171800 at 5q14.3, P = 7.74 × 10−17; rs715 at 2q34, P = 9.97 × 10−14; rs477992 at 1p12, P = 2.60 × 10−12) and then replicated (P < 0.01) in an independent cohort of 172 cases and 1,134 controls. The 5q14.3 locus is known to associate with variation in retinal vascular diameter, and the 2q34 and 1p12 loci have been implicated in the glycine/serine metabolic pathway. We subsequently found significant differences in blood serum levels of glycine (P = 4.04 × 10−6) and serine (P = 2.48 × 10−4) between MacTel cases and controls

Challenging the Logics of Reformism and Humanism in Juvenile Justice Rhetoric

This article draws on contemporary policy discourse in order to advance claims about the intractable figure of the “bad” child in contemporary juvenile justice reforms in the United States (US). The article focuses in particular on the discourses of trauma and “brain science” to point to a form of neo-positivism that has arguably emerged and which challenges efforts to engage in systematic decarceration. The article also focuses on the idea of the “bad child” that persists in the commitment of some reformers to the necessity of confinement for some children. The article questions the extent to which new forms of positivism challenge our ability to leverage structural claims

Contextualising Apartheid at the End of Empire: Repression, ‘Development’ and the Bantustans

This article examines the global dynamics of late colonialism and how these informed South African apartheid. More specifically, it locates the programmes of mass relocation and bantustan ‘self-government’ that characterised apartheid after 1959 in relation to three key dimensions. Firstly, the article explores the global circulation of idioms of ‘development’ and trusteeship in the first half of the twentieth century and its significance in shaping segregationist policy; secondly, it situates bantustan ‘selfgovernment’ in relation to the history of decolonisation and the partitions and federations that emerged as late colonial solutions; and, thirdly, it locates the tightening of rural village planning in the bantustans after 1960 in relation to the elaboration of anti-colonial liberation struggles, repressive southern African settler politics and the Cold War. It argues that, far from developing policies that were at odds with the global ‘wind of change’, South African apartheid during the 1960s and 1970s reflected much that was characteristic about late colonial strategy