RRI and EDI into practice: Lessons from Experience
As part of the RAi UK all hands meeting held in Manchester from the 18th-19th November 2025, the Equities Pillar run a workshop for RAi researchers to reflect on their Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) practices, share benefits, lessons from experience, and opportunities for improvement.
Early Career representatives of each Cornerstone (5) and Keystone (3) project delivered a brief presentation of how their teams integrated RRI and/or EDI activities into their work , the challenges they encountered, and actions taken. This was followed by discussions in small groups, which provided a space for all participants (from different teams, work experience and areas of expertise) to learn from other people’s views, challenges and perspectives. All participants engaged in thoughtful discussions and were able to use physical RI Prompts and Practice Cards (RI Cards) to support their reflections, and to keep a deck of cards to use with their teams in their current and future projects/activities.
RRI and EDI are key to the projects themselves, however the way they were articulated and perspectives drawn from experience differed between projects. Themes presented and discussed included: how EDI and RRI were embedded in the consideration and make-up of research teams, the challenges of developing shared understanding and communication in multidisciplinary teams -potentially due to unspoken assumptions-, power dynamics and disciplinary specific goals and norms. One team provided an example of how they’ve included elements of RRI and ethics into the design of technological systems, as part of their project’s outputs. Researchers also shared how they adapted their research activities to suit real world contexts in working with stakeholders.
A challenge shared by most of the teams was stakeholder engagement, particularly recruiting research participants and collaborating with partners. These difficulties often included navigating power dynamics and understanding the motivations and needs of all involved.
The Equities Pillar considers the challenges encountered by RRI and EDI implementation not as indicators of failure as ‘lack of success’. Rather, they are constructive opportunities that enable experiential learning and facilitate peer-to-peer knowledge exchange. We believe these activities are particularly relevant to ECRs who are developing their careers within an increasingly uncertain and highly competitive landscape across the UK and internationally. As valuable as these experiences are, responding to such challenges represents significant work, which participants felt is often invisible and unrecognised. Attendees expressed a desire for greater recognition and appreciation of this work, to add value to wider and longer-term considerations in addition to the immediate delivery of research outputs to consolidate the importance of RRI and EDI.
The opportunity to discuss and share experiences was particularly valuable as PhD students, post-docs and researchers at different career stages found the session useful to learn from other people’s RRI and EDI practice and enjoyed meeting peers outside their core teams.
Integration of RRI and EDI is at the core of RAi UK, yet how researchers experienced it in practice and the opportunities and challenges they face, provided valuable insights for our Pillar to plan its next activities. Although there is a no ‘one size fits all’ approach to RRI and EDI implementation in research, establishing a systematic approach and having a strong and agile RRI and EDI leadership structure within each research project (and even within each work package for larger and more well-resourced projects) has proven beneficial, as realised in many projects’ outputs. We encourage researchers and teams to continue reflecting on RRI and EDI themselves, and we plan to provide further opportunities to build on this foundation in the future.
We look forward to seeing how things have developed, how challenges have been embraced and overcome, and how RRI and EDI is further implemented in RAi UK as the projects and programme progress. If you have any suggestions, needs or ideas for further support across projects, then please contact: Dr Virginia Portillo, RAi UK RRI and EDI Coordinator and EDI Champion.
Credits: Dr Virginia Portillo, Dr Peter Craigon and Prof Elvira Pérez, on behalf of the RAi UK Equities Pillar.