Innovating innovation policy: the emergence of ‘Responsible Research and Innovation’

Within the policy structures of the European Union (EU), the concept of ‘Responsible Research and Innovation’ (RRI) appears to have a very specific emergence point, via a workshop for invited experts hosted by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Research and Innovation in May 2011. Through a textual analysis of EU documents, this paper will explore the processes through which RRI has been incorporated into Horizon 2020 as a policy framework for the European Research Area which promises that technological innovation will be shaped towards social goods. It concludes by discussing some of the tensions between RRI and policies emanating from other EU institutions, highlighting areas which may impede RRI's progress towards its goals

Anticipating the location of a waste collection point : an application based on Portugal

We study the optimal location of a waste facility in a horizontally differentiated duopoly where firms choose their location and price. The policymaker decides the location of a waste facility targeting social welfare maximization. Consistent with the observation of the location decisions of waste facilities in Portugal, we show that the optimal location of a waste facility is never in the city center under partial expost regulation. Ex-ante regulation ensures the highest level of social welfare, but from a theoretical point of view, it requires a waste facility located in the city center. A robustness check is then provided to justify that, in actual regulatory practice, a first-mover regulator maximizes social welfare without necessarily imposing the installation of a waste facility in the city center.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio