Introducing responsible innovation in health: a policy-oriented framework

Abstract

The scholarship on responsible research and innovation (RRI) aims to align the processes and outcomes of innovation with societal values by involving a broad range of stakeholders from a very early stage. Though this scholarship offers a new lens to consider the challenges new health technologies raise for health systems around the world, there is a need to define the dimensions that specifically characterise responsible innovation in health (RIH). The present article aims to introduce an integrative RIH framework drawing on the RRI literature, the international literature on health systems as well as specific bodies of knowledge that shed light on key dimensions of health innovations. Combining inductive and deductive theory-building strategies and concomitant with the development of a formal tool to assess the responsibility of innovations, we developed a framework that is comprised of nine dimensions organised within five value domains, namely population health, health system, economic, organisational and environmental. RIH provides health and innovation policy-makers with a common framework that supports the development of innovations that can tackle significant system-level challenges, including sustainability and equity.

Responsibility for Assisted Living Technologies

“…RRI has a novel normative approach to research and innovation in its study of the moral purpose of innovations. This approach aims to combine central value aspects in societies with the social and economic benefits of research and innovation through close links with industry (Pacifico Silva, Lehoux, Miller, & Denis 2018). Different approaches and RRI both include affected parties, users, stakeholders and policy-makers.…”

“…In order to fulfill this demand, I believe that an assessment approach would also need to include an exploration into contingency, in order to assess plausible changes (Stilgoe et al 2013). Recently, Pacifico Silva et al (2018) investigated Responsible innovation in Health (RiH) in a policy setting, and they argue that this should encompass five value domains consisting of nine dimensions. 6 Their addition to the themes above are the health relevance, the organizational dimension and frugality.…”

The Unexplored Contribution of Responsible Innovation in Health to Sustainable Development Goals

“…Following this approach, we gathered and analyzed empirical data and examples to develop a preliminary framework of the relationships between RIH and the SDGs that could help to identify key knowledge gaps and areas for further reflections. Our empirical investigation was embedded within a broader research project that was aimed at developing a tool to assess the degree of responsibility of health innovations [9]. Relying on a horizon scanning methodology, we created an inventory of innovations that possessed certain responsibility features in order to identify and organize the more generic dimensions and attributes the tool had to include.…”

“…Two team members independently categorized 20% of the innovations retrieved in order to develop consistent inclusion and exclusion criteria, which were then applied by one team member to the remaining sample. We excluded innovations that relied mainly on software (e.g., apps) or mainly on human intervention (e.g., clinical or educational approaches) to provide an individualized solution to the user since our tool is meant to assess innovations that include technical components to address the social determinants of health [9].…”

“…It is within such a broad interdisciplinary perspective that our aim in this article is to explore the ways in which a novel STI approach, called Responsible Innovation in Health (RIH) [8,9], could support not only the SDG3 (Good health and well-being), but also SDGs related to economic development and environmental sustainability. For Silva and colleagues, RIH refers to a collaborative endeavor wherein stakeholders are committed to clarify and meet a set of ethical, economic, social and environmental principles, values and requirements when they design, finance, produce, distribute, use and discard sociotechnical solutions to address the needs and challenges of health systems in a sustainable way [9]. This definition posits that RIH encompasses social innovations, which aim at creating social change and may benefit health and wellbeing, and sustainable innovations, which aim at reducing environmental harms and may benefit health and wellbeing [10].…”