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RRI Toolkit

Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) means doing research in a way that anticipates how it might affect people and the environment in the future so that we can gain the most benefit and avoid harm. RRI is at the heart of the RAi UK research programme.

What is Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)?

Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) invites researchers and innovators to consider the bigger picture, including the long-term impacts of their work and its value to society. Different definitions of RRI emphasize different things, but they all highlight concerns that can be overlooked or undervalued, even by good researchers. For example, Von Schomberg (2013) highlights:

  • ethical acceptability,
  • sustainability and
  • societal desirability.

Note that Responsible Research and Innovation overlaps with, but is not the same as:

  • Research Ethics, which is concerned mainly with the safety of research participants and data subjects; and
  • Research Integrity, which is concerned with maintaining standards and best practice in research.

Here are some more definitions of Responsible Research and/or Innovation:

“Responsible innovation means taking care of the future through collective stewardship of science and innovation in the present.” p1570 – Stilgoe et al (2013) Developing a framework for responsible innovation, Research Policy, Volume 42, Issue 9 Pages 1568-1580, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2013.05.008

‘Responsible Research and Innovation is a transparent, interactive process by which societal actors and innovators become mutually responsive to each other with a view on the (ethical) acceptability, sustainability and societal desirability of the innovation process and its marketable products (in order to allow a proper embedding of scientific and technological advances in our society)’ p9 – Von Schomberg, R. (Ed.). (2011). Towards Responsible Research and Innovation in the Information and Communication Technologies and Security Technologies Fields. Luxembourg: Publication Office of the European Union. Retrieved from  https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/60153e8a-0fe9-4911-a7f4-1b530967ef10 

What is the Value of RRI?

Practicing Responsible Research and Innovation:

  • helps you – and other people – to understand why you are doing what you are doing,
  • helps to avoid problems before they happen,
  • helps to get the most value out of your time and research.

Practicing Responsible Research and Innovation typically includes:

  • Anticipating possible outcomes of research and innovation. This includes considering both intended and unintended outcomes, and can help you to think about why the work is worth doing, and also what might “go wrong” or cause problems in the future.
  • Reflecting on your (and others) motivations, processes and products. Even within a single research or innovation project we all face different and competing demands on our time and energy. By setting aside time to deliberately reflect we can help to ensure that we are still heading in a good direction and using our time well.
  • Engaging with relevant stakeholders. Eventually our work will affect other people, for example as users, consumers, patients or citizens. By involving a broad range of people early in the research and innovation process and allowing them to shape the research we can increase the chances that our work will be both useful and acceptable, and we may avoid a nasty surprise later on (such as a public outcry or newspaper scandal).
  • Acting accordingly to address issues revealed. RRI practices should make a real difference to what we do and how we do it.

For more information…

Marina Jirotka, Barbara Grimpe, Bernd Stahl, Grace Eden, and Mark Hartswood. 2017. Responsible research and innovation in the digital age. Commun. ACM 60, 5 (May 2017), 62–68. https://doi.org/10.1145/3064940

Paul Root Wolpe. 2006. Reasons Scientists Avoid Thinking about Ethics. Cell, Volume 125, Issue 6, 1023 – 1025. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2006.06.001

Getting Started with RRI:

The EPSRC AREA framework highlights four key activities involved in “doing” RRI:

  • Anticipate possible outcomes of research and innovation (including unintended ones),
  • Reflect on motivations, processes and products,
  • Engage with relevant stakeholders, and
  • Act accordingly to address issues revealed.

There are LOTS of different tools and resources available to help with RRI. Sometimes the biggest problem is deciding where to start. The RRI Prompts and Practice cards provide a simple starting point if you want to start thinking about what RRI could mean for your research.
But fundamentally, RRI is an ongoing process in which you ask yourself (and your colleagues):
What are we going to do now to make our research ‘more responsible’?

Here are some more specific questions to consider in relation to RRI:

  • What actions do you need or want to take?
  • What do you need to find out more about?
  • How could you adapt the activities you already have planned to incorporate things we have discussed today?
  • What barriers or difficulties might there be? How could you overcome them?
  • Could elements of RRI become part of your research, i.e. something you publish?
  • What thought or idea are you going to take away to apply elsewhere?

 

As a researcher, you can do a lot to make your research responsible, but there are some things that you can’t do as a lone researcher. RRI will be most effective if:

  • The Project specifically allocates time and resources for RRI
  • The Research Group or Centre provides support for RRI, for example in proposal development
  • The Research Organisation supports and values RRI, for example in promotion
  • External bodies such as Funders are seen to value RRI – which UKRI do!

So you may need to ask other people for support, and perhaps you could act as a local “champion” for RRI.

For more information…

Virginia Portillo, Peter Craigon, Liz Dowthwaite, Chris Greenhalgh, Elvira Pérez-Vallejos (2022). Supporting responsible research and innovation within a university-based digital research programme: Reflections from the “hoRRIzon” project. Journal of Responsible Technology, Volume 12, 100045, ISSN 2666-6596. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrt.2022.100045

RRI for New Proposals

It is important to start considering Responsible Research and Innovation as early as possible in the process of developing a new project proposal. Many important decisions are made by the time the project is actually approved/funded.

Many funders also expect or require some elements of RRI to be evidenced in the proposal (for example, Patient and Public Involvement for medical projects). You should check for specific guidance or requirements related to the funder or funding call.

We have found it useful to:

  • Dedicate some time to anticipating potentially significant RRI issues early in the process.
  • Engaging with a range of people in those discussions, ideally including different kinds of stakeholders.
  • Explicitly include RRI activities and practices in the project plan.
  • Identify at least one team member to specifically champion RRI, to make sure it doesn’t get overlooked when things get busy.

Anticipating Potential Challenges

We have found that discussing this subset of questions based on the AREA-Plus framework is a good way to start thinking about RRI issues when developing a new project proposal:

  • Purpose: Why should this research be undertaken? Is the research controversial? Or disruptive? (5-10 minutes)
  • People: Who is affected? How? Who actually benefits? Or is harmed? Who is indirectly affected? Are the right stakeholders involved? (10-15 minutes)
  • Product: What might be the potential uses of what we create? Including unintended uses or consequences? Are there significant environmental impacts? (10-15 minutes)
  • Process: Are there any obvious research ethics concerns? Practically, how will we engage a wide group of stakeholders? How will we make time to reflect and replan during the project? (10-15 minutes)
  • Act: Document the key insights from the discussion and start to plan specific ways to address them in your project.

We suggest that you set aside about 1 hour to do this as a proposal team. Ideally including other stakeholders, or repeat the exercise with them.

RRI Action Plans

An RRI Action Plan is just a clear statement of what you are going to “do” in terms of RRI and why. An exercise like the one above can help to identify project priorities for RRI.

It is important to make the plan concrete, e.g. dedicating time and resources to specific activities that will address your RRI priorities.

The RRI Prompts and Practice cards – and many other RRI tools and resources – may help you to identify and plan RRI-related activities.

 

Here are some links to useful tools and resources to help with RRI:

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