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.
The approach of responsible research and innovation (RRI) has been proposed to support the introduction of technologies that touch upon socially sensitive issues. RRI is intended to help designers and manufacturers of new technologies identify and accommodate public concerns when developing a new technology by engaging with a wide range of relevant actors in an interactive, transparent process. However what this approach amounts to exactly remains elusive as of yet, i.e. it is unclear what its contribution to the societal embedding of new technologies should consists of exactly. The transition to a sustainable bio-economy that uses biomass as its main resource is a complicated trajectory involving many actors and touching upon societally sensitive issues such as the use of genetic modification. In this paper we pose the question in what way RRI can stimulate the development and diffusion of a sustainable bio-economy in The Netherlands and Europe. We claim that for the further development and diffusion of the bio-economy, trust among actors in the relevant value-chain is a prerequisite. RRI can play a pivotal part in the bio-economy by providing conditions for trustworthiness of actors and by enhancing trusting relationships. This can be achieved through
Sustainable development has become an outstanding aspiration in our society. However, the meaning of sustainability and how it should be operationalized is a complex issue that depends on subjective beliefs and values. To advance toward sustainable biobased production, we present an approach to delimit the design space of biorefi neries by considering stakeholders' values. Concepts from Design for Values were taken as the starting point for this approach, which was further developed with a biojet fuel production case in the Brazilian states of Minas Gerais and São Paulo. Design propositions that considered the interaction between stakeholders' values, sustainability, and the production system were derived and used to suggest design space boundaries. These design boundaries are indicative, allowing for deliberation during future design activities. Through them, designers are prompted to actively refl ect on the interaction between biorefi nery systems and the socioeconomic and environmental context around them. By opening the design process to stakeholders' values, we have developed a constructivist approach to incorporate sustainability in an inclusive and contextspecifi c manner during the early stages of biorefi nery design.
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.
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