Responsible Research and Innovation Revisited: Aligning Product Development Processes with the Corporate Responsibility Agenda

It is well established that society faces some grand challenges ahead that have led to a call for more focus on sustainability and socially responsible business practices (European Commission 2010, 2012; Scherer and Palazzo 2011). It is now widely accepted that human-induced climate change is caused by production and consumption patterns that have emerged to meet society’s evolving needs (Unruh 2000; Foxon and Pearson 2006). There are increasing amounts of legislation to try to encourage more sustainable practices and to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. For example, the 2008 United Kingdom (UK) Climate Change Act (UK Parliament 2008) states that “It is the duty of the Secretary of State to ensure that the net UK carbon account for the year 2050 is at least 80 % lower than the 1990 baseline” (p. 1). Other legislation is encouraging manufacturers to take back and recycle their products at the end of their useful lives

The Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) Maturity Model: Linking Theory and Practice

Responsible research and innovation (RRI) is an approach to research and innovation governance aiming to ensure that research purpose, process and outcomes are acceptable, sustainable and even desirable. In order to achieve this ambitious aim, RRI must be relevant to research and innovation in industry. In this paper, we discuss a way of understanding and representing RRI that resonates with private companies and lends itself to practical implementation and action. We propose the development of an RRI maturity model in the tradition of other well-established maturity models, linked with a corporate research and development (R&D) process. The foundations of this model lie in the discourse surrounding RRI and selected maturity models from other domains as well as the results of extensive empirical investigation. The model was tested in three industry environments and insights from these case studies show the model to be viable and useful in corporate innovation processes. With this approach, we aim to inspire further research and evaluation of the proposed maturity model as a tool for facilitating the integration of RRI in corporate management

Company Strategies for Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI): A Conceptual Model

Responsible research and innovation (RRI) has become an important topic in the academic community and in policy circles, but it has not yet been systematically included in the innovation process of companies. We discuss how companies can integrate RRI into their corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies and business strategy. To this end, we developed a conceptual model that links a company’s RRI strategy to its context, and that helps to translate the RRI strategy into activities that result in RRI outcomes. We also propose a process for developing company-specific RRI key performance indicators (KPIs) that can support companies to measure RRI outcomes

Research and Innovation Processes revisited - Networked Responsibility in Industry

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how relationships between different actors are being shaped, in order to allow industry to come to acceptable and desirable uses of Research and Innovation (R&I) that address societal challenges. Design/methodology/approach – Building on existing notions of responsibility proposed in the literature, the paper develops a theoretical account of “networks of responsibility” which capture the interlinked nature of responsibility relationships. The usefulness of the approach is evaluated by exploring two cases of R&I in industry deploying a qualitative research approach that involves interviewing and document analysis. For this, a multinational company from Germany was involved, as well as a small and medium-sized company from Denmark. Findings – The study surfaced 68 responsibility relationships involving a range of different objects, subjects, authorities, and norms. By describing overlaps in objects, subjects, and other aspects across relationships, the theoretical model proved adequate in untangling and displaying interrelatedness of responsibilities. Furthermore, the analysis surfaced characteristics of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) that are already in place in the R&I processes of two innovative companies, such as anticipation, foresight, and stakeholder engagement. Not all aspects of responsibility outlined in the theoretical model could be extracted from the interview data for every responsibility relationship, pointing to the need for further research. Originality/value – The paper offers a novel theoretical approach to understanding and analysing responsibility allocations in R&I in industry. It demonstrates the reliability of this theoretical position empirically. It is practically important because it supports policy development on an organisational as well as societal level

The Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) Maturity Model: Linking Theory and Practice

Responsible research and innovation (RRI) is an approach to research and innovation governance aiming to ensure that research purpose, process and outcomes are acceptable, sustainable and even desirable. In order to achieve this ambitious aim, RRI must be relevant to research and innovation in industry. In this paper, we discuss a way of understanding and representing RRI that resonates with private companies and lends itself to practical implementation and action. We propose the development of an RRI maturity model in the tradition of other well-established maturity models, linked with a corporate research and development (R&D) process. The foundations of this model lie in the discourse surrounding RRI and selected maturity models from other domains as well as the results of extensive empirical investigation. The model was tested in three industry environments and insights from these case studies show the model to be viable and useful in corporate innovation processes. With this approach, we aim to inspire further research and evaluation of the proposed maturity model as a tool for facilitating the integration of RRI in corporate management

Learning to do responsible innovation in industry: six lessons

There is now almost a decade of experience with RRI (Responsible Research and Innovation), including a growing emphasis on RRI in industry. Based on our experiences in the EU-funded project PRISMA, we find that the companies we engaged could be motivated to do RRI, but often only after we first shifted initial assumptions and strategies. Accordingly, we formulate six lessons we learned in the expectation that they will be relevant both for RRI in industry as well as for the future of RRI more broadly. These lessons are: (1) Strategize for stakeholder engagement; (2) Broaden current assessments; (3) Place values center stage; (4) Experiment for responsiveness; (5) Monitor RRI progress; and (6) Aim for shared value

six lessons

UIDB/04647/2020 UIDP/04647/2020There is now almost a decade of experience with RRI (Responsible Research and Innovation), including a growing emphasis on RRI in industry. Based on our experiences in the EU-funded project PRISMA, we find that the companies we engaged could be motivated to do RRI, but often only after we first shifted initial assumptions and strategies. Accordingly, we formulate six lessons we learned in the expectation that they will be relevant both for RRI in industry as well as for the future of RRI more broadly. These lessons are: (1) Strategize for stakeholder engagement; (2) Broaden current assessments; (3) Place values center stage; (4) Experiment for responsiveness; (5) Monitor RRI progress; and (6) Aim for shared value.publishersversionpublishe

Public participation in mission-oriented innovation projects

Mission-oriented innovation policy is currently gaining renewed interest as an approach for addressing societal challenges. One of the promises is that missions can mobilise and align diverse stakeholders around a shared goal. Recent literature underlines the importance of public participation (e.g. municipalities and civil society organisations) in the socioeconomic transformations required for attaining missions. We ask how public participation differs among (non-)mission-oriented innovation projects. Drawing on a database containing Dutch government-funded innovation projects, we investigate whether mission-oriented projects are associated with earlier, more open, and more influential forms of public participation than conventional projects. Although the results suggest that mission-oriented projects indeed correspond with earlier participation of more public actors, we find little evidence that they also coincide with increased diversity and financial influence of public participants. We conclude by discussing how policymakers and intermediaries may engage in strategies to make missions more inclusive

Cybersecurity of critical infrastructure

This chapter provides a political and philosophical analysis of the values at stake in ensuring cybersecurity for critical infrastructures. It presents a review of the boundaries of cybersecurity in national security, with a focus on the ethics of surveillance for protecting critical infrastructures and the use of AI. A bibliographic analysis of the literature is applied until 2016 to identify and discuss the cybersecu- rity value conflicts and ethical issues in national security. This is integrated with an analysis of the most recent literature on cyber-threats to national infrastructure and the role of AI. This chapter demonstrates that the increased connectedness of digital and non-digital infrastructure enhances the trade-offs between values identified in the literature of the past years, and supports this thesis with the analysis of four case studies