Niels Mejlgaard, nm@ps.au.dk(with Erich Griessler and national correspondents from 16 countries)Go4 final conference, Jan 14-15, 2016

RRI Trends:Monitoring RRI in Europe - Approach and Key Observations

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RRI Trends: main objectives

� National profile or the ‘state of RRI’ for 16 countries

› Overall policy developments relating to RRI

› RRI governance arrangements across sectors and organisational sites

� Enable comparative analyses across countries and organisations

› Using uniform protocols for research

› Common design for presentation of results

� Present collected data and evidence in a user-friendly and flexible format.

› Dedicated RRI Trends web platform from which country reports or self-selected parts can be accessed

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RRI Trends coverage

� RRI Trends covers 16 European countries

› 7 countries represented in the Res-AGorAconsortium

› 1 country covered through collaboration with the GREAT project

› 8 countries selected based on initial scan and cluster analysis using data produced in the MASIS project

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RRI Trends approach

� One national ‘RRI expert’ correspondent from each country

› Common research questions and procedures for data collection

› Document analyses

› Series of qualitative interviews

� Data collection implemented in three consecutive waves

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First wave – National landscape

� Target:

› RRI dimensions in national policies

› Policy mechanisms supporting responsible governance of R&I

› Which actors are involved in the governance of R&I

› The techno-scientific domains that RRI governance addresses

� Correspondents selected 10 important, recent documents exemplifying national policies related to RRI in their respective countries.

� First wave reports and all documents analysed (also for waves 2-3) with abstracts available through the RRI Trends website.

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Second wave – specific R&I organisations

� Target:

› Uptake of the RRI concept across organisations

› How is responsibility in R&I, explicitly and implicitly, being addressed?

› Which are the perceived barriers to RRI

� ‘Responsibility in funding research and innovation’ & ‘Responsibility in performing R&I’

� Correspondents used desk research and interviews to explore different types of actors in their respective countries:

› The most prominent national public research funding agency

› An important private research foundation

› A selection of 10 universities

› Two selected research-intensive private companies

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Third wave – Civil society organisations (CSOs)

� Target:

› Uptake of the RRI concept

› How is RRI, explicitly and implicitly, being addressed?

› Which are the perceived barriers to RRI?

� Correspondents selected one CSO and performed desk research and interviews.

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The overall collective research effort

� Several hundred documents analysed

� More than 200 individual organisations covered

� Numerous interviews conducted across countries,

sectors, and organisational sites

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Main output: the RRI Trends database / website

� Open access through the RRI Trends web platform

� The database allows for:

› Access to all background documents with abstracts

› National reports from each of the consecutive waves

› Knowledge about the ‘state of RRI’ in the separate countries across multiple organisations

› Selective extraction, tailored searches, and comparative analyses

› Flexible access to all data. Extraction of the entire data-set or self-selected parts

www.rritrends.res-agora.eu

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Main observations

� The notion of ‘RRI’ is emerging, but it is not a mainstream concept across the European research and innovation actor landscape.

� While the specific RRI terminology is not mainstreamed, there are widespread examples of organisational commitment and practices relating to responsibility in research and innovation.

� Significant heterogeneity across countries and types of actors

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Ex. 1: Explicit reference to ‘RRI’ in nationalR&I policy documents (1st wave)

No reference •••• Sparse reference •••• Regular reference

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CSR CH Ed En Et G H OA P SC S

Implicit RRI dimensionsemerging from 1st wave

CSR Corporate Social Responsibility

CH Cultural heritage

Ed Education

En Environment

Et Ethics

G Gender in science

H Health

OA Open Access

P Participation

SC Societal Challenges

S Sustainability

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Resea

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Priv

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esearch

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Ex. 2: Explicit reference to ‘RRI’ acrossorganisations (2nd wave)

No reference •••• Sparse reference •••• Regular reference

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Evidence of the ‘six keys’ in 2nd wave

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Engagement Ethics Gender Governance Sci. Literacy Open Access

Universities (n=16)

Research Councils(n=16)

Private ResearchFoundations (n=13)

Private Companies(n=15)

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Conclusion

� Issues related to responsibility in research and innovation are clearly salient across countries and organisations.

� An ‘RRI’ agenda seems to be developing in Europe, but there is no single, simple trend or model of it across European countries and organisations.