The European Union pushes science education to orient toward the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI; i.e., socially and ethically sensitive and inclusive processes of science and technology). Schools should further understanding on how science interacts with society and increase students' engagement in science. This exploratory study analysed concerns of 67 active, forward-looking teachers from 10 European countries using a questionnaire based on the concerns-based adoption model (C-BAM) and open-ended questions regarding the adoption of RRI into teaching. In the context of an international professional development programme on RRI, a pre/ post comparison was also carried out for 29 of the teachers. The results showed that the forerunner teachers were willing to find information and collaborate on RRI teaching and believed that RRI can engage students and be a worthwhile part of the curriculum. Yet the respondents voiced personal concerns about their ability to teach RRI, and only a few concerns were resolved during the professional development period. Teachers need extended support and networking to contextualise RRI into their science lessons. On the basis of the results, we discuss the possibilities of teaching RRI implicitly rather than explicitly in order to foster students' own reasoning about RRIrelated values. Our results also demonstrate that the customary questionnaire used with C-BAM gives a consistent picture of teachers' concerns but does not differentiate teachers enough in order to formulate a statistically sound clustering of concern profiles. We argue that with proper adjustments the questionnaire can provide more diverse and informative profiling of teachers' concerns.

The European Union (EU) encourages science education to be oriented towards the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), i.e. socially and ethically sensitive and inclusive processes of science and technology. Connecting RRI to prevailing concepts in science education, such as the Nature of Science (NoS), may facilitate the incorporation of RRI in curricula and classrooms. We carried out a conceptual comparison between the EU's RRI policy and a recent reconceptualization of NoS, known as the expanded Family Resemblance Approach. We discuss how the socio-institutional nature of science in that approach closely connects to the RRI and can provide a means for RRI teaching. To illustrate these opportunities, we present practical classroom approaches developed in the EU-funded project IRRESISTIBLE, and survey results on teachers' perspectives on RRI. The aim of this work is to understand better the potential implications of RRI to research and practice in science education.

In order to facilitate policy-driven reforms in science education, it is important to understand how teaching innovations diffuse among teachers and how that adoption process can be catalysed. Little is known about the set of attitudes that makes teachers early or late adopters. In this study, the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (C-BAM) was employed as a framework for analysing teachers' interests, concerns, worries and enthusiasm. We argue that the questionnaire typically used with C-BAM suffers from a ceiling effect and has unbalanced variables. An improved version of the questionnaire was developed and implemented in the project IRRESISTIBLE with 180 science teachers in ten countries at all school levels. The case of educational innovation in this project was Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), a concept offered by the EU for science education to orient towards socially and ethically sensitive and inclusive processes of science and technology. Using cluster analysis we found four concern profile types: the Carefree, the Pragmatic, the Uncertain and the Worried. With their relatively high positive interests, the Carefree and the Pragmatic profile types are most likely to be early adopters. The high number of Uncertain teachers calls for better conceptualization of RRI in the school context. Furthermore, teacher professional development and additional resources are needed if this innovation is to be diffused widely across European schools. The improved questionnaire provided elaborate information on teachers' concerns and interests, and could help in understanding and facilitating other top-down educational reforms as well.