Engaging Stakeholders by Implementing RRI in the Social Lab Process – A Single Case Study

With new and emerging technologies, process of Research and Innovation (R & I) changed. Some point out an “increasingly growing complexity” (Gianni 2020: 14) that needs to be addressed. Other scholars note that “the pace of technological change has increased dramatically” (Gould 2012: 2) This complexity requires new modes of engaging stakeholders to the R & I process. As mentioned in Chap. 1 of this book, the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) (von Schomberg 2013) was created as a way to better engage stakeholders and their needs

D3: Endbericht PPIE. Begleitforschung PPIE-Umsetzungsprogramm

Die Begleitforschung der beiden Ausschreibungsrunden des Umsetzungsprogramms Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) zielt darauf ab die Projekte der ersten und zweiten Pilotausschreibung sowie die vom PPIE-Team angebotenen Unterstützungsmöglichkeiten zu evaluieren, um wichtige Lernerfahrungen für künftige Ausschreibungen ziehen zu können. Die Begleitforschung, die auch die ungeplante dritte PPIE-Ausschreibung in Ansätzen berücksichtigt, zeigt dabei auf, welchen Umfang, welche Tiefe und welche Qualität die Einbindung der Citizens (in diesem Bericht auch für involvierte Patient:innen verwendet) in die Projekte haben und welchen wissenschaftlichen, sozialen und demokratischen Mehrwert für unterschiedliche Zielgruppen generiert werden konnte. Darüber hinaus lassen die im Zuge der Begleitforschung erhobenen Daten Rückschlüsse zu, wie die Unterstützungsangebote des PPIE-Teams angenommen wurden und welche Schritte zur Sicherstellung von mittel- und langfristigen Impacts der PPIE-Projekte notwendig sind. Für die Begleitforschung der beiden Pilotausschreibungen wurde ein Mix aus unterschiedlichen Methoden wie qualitative Interviews, Fokusgruppen, schriftliche Befragung, teilnehmende Beobachtung, etc. angewendet. Der Bericht schließt mit einer Reihe von Empfehlungen für zukünftige Projektausschreibungen ab, in denen Citizen Science umgesetzt werden soll

New HoRRIzon: D7.3 NewHoRRIzon Social Lab Manual – Final Version

This manual guided the Social Lab team over three years through the three learning cycles of the 19 Social Labs of the NewHoRRIzon project. The document starts with a short invitation to the journey of a Social Lab, sketches thereafter some of the challenges of RRI. It continues with explaining the Social Lab and some of its key terms, and provides an overview on the Social Lab process (diagnosis, setting up, labbing), roles and tasks (participants, manager, facilitator, researcher, work package leader) as well as phases of the Social Lab. The Annex provides Literature, sample letters for invitations, generic Social Lab designs, minutes of the Social Lab Design Workshop in 2017 as well evaluation templates (Moment I, II, III, IV, V, VI)

»Virtual Skills Lab« – Transdisziplinäres Forschen zur Vermittlung sozialer Kompetenzen im digitalen Wandel

Inter- bzw. transdisziplinäre Forschungsarbeit ist im aktuellen Wissenschaftsbereich häufig gängige Praxis, obwohl die Verständnisse über Umfang und Strukturen einer solchen Zusammenarbeit keineswegs einheitlich sind. Die Autor*innen vermitteln anhand eines Virtual-Reality-Trainings für soziale Kompetenzen Einblicke in die Prozesse des gemeinsamen Forschens. In einer Reihe von Gesprächen reflektieren sie über die Ideenfindung zu ihrem Projekt des »Virtual Skills Lab«, die Entwicklung der dazugehörigen Forschungsfrage sowie deren Ausarbeitung in Form der interaktiven Szene. Entlang dieses Beispiels für virtuelles Training werden schließlich praktische Empfehlungen zur Gestaltung der übergreifenden Zusammenarbeit im digitalen Wandel angeboten

Dying is never beautiful, but there are beautiful moments: qualitative interviews with those affected on the subject of ‘good dying’

The concept of the good death has been widely considered. However, the perspectives of those affected have not received sufficient attention. In our empirical study, we conducted interviews with 32 people who were confronted with dying; these people were either terminally ill, elderly or else were bereaved carers. The findings show that for this group of people, dying is not just a physical process, but also a psychological, social and spiritual one. From the perspective of those affected, dying is never beautiful, in particular because of the associated pain and suffering. At the same time, people confronted with dying do experience beautiful moments. In the stories they tell of these beautiful moments, it is a beauty emanating from a sense of elevated emotion – of moral emotion – rather than any aesthetic beauty. We conclude that good care of the dying enables beautiful moments and creates reflective spaces for those affected to express what beauty means to them. We show that the public discourse differs significantly from the perspective of those affected and more efforts need to be made to include their voices

Social labs as temporary intermediary learning organizations to help implement complex normative policies. The case of Responsible Research and Innovation in European science governance

This study aims to discuss science governance in Europe and the network of associated nonprofit institutions. The authors posit that this network, which comprises both (partial) learning organizations and non-learning organizations, has been observed to postpone taking up “responsibility” as an issue in science governance and funding decisions

Marcus or Mira - Investigating the Perception of Virtual Agent Gender in Virtual Reality Role Play-Training

Immersive virtual training environments are used in various domains. In this work we focus on role-play training in virtual reality. In virtual role-play training conversations and interactions with virtual agents are often fundamental to the training. Therefore, the appearance and behavior of the agents plays an important role when designing role-play training.We focus on the gender appearance of agents, as gender is an important aspect for differentiation between characters. We conducted a study with 40 participants in which we investigated how agents gender appearance influences the perception of the agents´ personality traits and the self-perception of a participants’ assumed role in a training for social skills. This work contributes towards understanding the design-space of virtual agent design, virtual agent gender identity, and the design and development of immersive virtual reality role-play training

Challenges in the implementation of responsible research and innovation across Horizon 2020

In the last decade, the European Commission (EC) developed an ambitious strategy to promote RRI across the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (H2020). This effort resulted in a significant number of European-funded projects that substantially expanded the available knowledge of the theory, methods and implementation of RRI. However, various evaluations and studies revealed a limited and diffuse implementation of the concept. In this article, we aim to shed some light on this matter with a study covering eight programme lines of H2020 (ERC, MSCA, LEIT, FOOD, ENV, SEC, WIDENING and EURATOM). We employ an extensive policy document analysis and 112 semi-structured interviews carried out with various stakeholders. We argue that the limited implementation of RRI in H2020 is the result of conflicts with existing values, science cultures, economic objectives, restricted resources for its implementation and a lack of clarification around what RRI means