agriculture & rural development
children & youth
cities, urban & regional development
data, digital & technology
education & capacity building
energy, climate change & the environment
employment, trade and the economy
food safety & security
fragility, crisis situations & resilience
gender, inequality & inclusion
language & culture
law, justice, fundamental and human rights, & democracy
maritime & fisheries
migration & integration
nutrition, health & wellbeing
public sector leadership, innovation & knowledge sharing
transport & infrastructure
agriculture & rural development
children & youth
cities, urban & regional development
data, digital & technology
education & capacity building
energy, climate change & the environment
employment, trade and the economy
food safety & security
fragility, crisis situations & resilience
gender, inequality & inclusion
language & culture
law, justice, fundamental and human rights, & democracy
maritime & fisheries
migration & integration
nutrition, health & wellbeing
public sector leadership, innovation & knowledge sharing
transport & infrastructure
The work presented in this report was carried out during 2018–2019 in collaboration between the Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS), Vienna, Austria within a consortium called NewHoRRIzon funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme (H2020).
Until 2020, responsible research and innovation (RRI) was an important cross-cutting objective of H2020.
RRI sought to develop actions on open access, gender, ethics, science education and public engagement.
The RRI framework supported inclusive and sustainable research and innovation, outlining how to ensure desirable societal impacts.
It emphasised the need for collaboration with stakeholders and citizen engagement throughout the whole research and innovation cycle to better align the process and its outcomes with the values, needs and expectations of society.
Although RRI is not prominent in Horizon
Europe, it shaped it considerably, especially with regard to RRI’s defining
five pillars: open science, gender balance, science communication and, to a
great extent, citizen engagement, and ethics.
Although the first three of those
are less dependent on individual researchers but rather on institutional
strategy, our experience is that citizen engagement and ethics evaluations are
meaningfully carried out if there is also an individual disposition to do it.
Both systematically engaging citizens and carrying out ethics evaluations in
research processes are about caring about the research’s (and innovation’s)
societal significance while pursuing quality in more than one respect.
This shift has considerable implications for the organisation, design and implementation of research.
This shift is also especially relevant when research is carried out to inform policymaking.
As the in-house science service of the European Commission, the JRC is an open and future-oriented institution with a work culture built on some of the RRI principles (even though RRI may not be explicitly mentioned).
However, the least-developed pillars have been precisely the engagement of citizens in research and knowledge production processes, and ethics evaluations.
Hence, this study aimed to extend niche work on that principle at the JRC.
The current report is the backbone of a forthcoming interactive toolkit intended for JRC practitioners aiming to strengthen the engagement of citizens and participatory ethical evaluations in developing science for policy and innovation.
In this toolkit, citizens are viewed not as recipients of outcomes, validators or data gatherers, but as partners in the knowledge production process, contributing to issue framing and, where necessary, to policy implementation.
We hope the forthcoming toolkit is also of use in other organisations that deal with knowledge production for policymaking.
This toolkit results from a partnership between the JRC and the NewHoRRIzon consortium (newhorrizon.eu) – a EU funded project under the H2020, concluded in 2021.
This project developed over 4 years within the Responsible Research and Innovation framework, exploring the concept of ‘social lab’.
One such ‘social lab’ was implemented at the JRC where two of the RRI’s key pillars were explored through a pilot project about Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs): citizen engagement and ethics.
The toolkit provides readers with various tools to implement citizen engagement and to carry out participatory ethical dialogues, based on the collaborative and transdisciplinary experience of 3 units at the JRC around social and ethical implications of CAVs.
The toolkit proposes that the journey, i.e., process and tools used in the pilot project on CAVS can be used in many other processes of (responsible) research for policy.
It provides guidance, questions and suggestions and links those with practical examples from the activities carried out in the pilot project.
The work presented in this report was carried out during 2018–2019 in collaboration between the Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS), Vienna, Austria within a consortium called NewHoRRIzon funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme (H2020).
Until 2020, responsible research and innovation (RRI) was an important cross-cutting objective of H2020.
RRI sought to develop actions on open access, gender, ethics, science education and public engagement.
The RRI framework supported inclusive and sustainable research and innovation, outlining how to ensure desirable societal impacts.
It emphasised the need for collaboration with stakeholders and citizen engagement throughout the whole research and innovation cycle to better align the process and its outcomes with the values, needs and expectations of society.
Although RRI is not prominent in Horizon
Europe, it shaped it considerably, especially with regard to RRI’s defining
five pillars: open science, gender balance, science communication and, to a
great extent, citizen engagement, and ethics.
Although the first three of those
are less dependent on individual researchers but rather on institutional
strategy, our experience is that citizen engagement and ethics evaluations are
meaningfully carried out if there is also an individual disposition to do it.
Both systematically engaging citizens and carrying out ethics evaluations in
research processes are about caring about the research’s (and innovation’s)
societal significance while pursuing quality in more than one respect.
This shift has considerable implications for the organisation, design and implementation of research.
This shift is also especially relevant when research is carried out to inform policymaking.
As the in-house science service of the European Commission, the JRC is an open and future-oriented institution with a work culture built on some of the RRI principles (even though RRI may not be explicitly mentioned).
However, the least-developed pillars have been precisely the engagement of citizens in research and knowledge production processes, and ethics evaluations.
Hence, this study aimed to extend niche work on that principle at the JRC.
The current report is the backbone of a forthcoming interactive toolkit intended for JRC practitioners aiming to strengthen the engagement of citizens and participatory ethical evaluations in developing science for policy and innovation.
In this toolkit, citizens are viewed not as recipients of outcomes, validators or data gatherers, but as partners in the knowledge production process, contributing to issue framing and, where necessary, to policy implementation.
We hope the forthcoming toolkit is also of use in other organisations that deal with knowledge production for policymaking.
This toolkit results from a partnership between the JRC and the NewHoRRIzon consortium (newhorrizon.eu) – a EU funded project under the H2020, concluded in 2021.
This project developed over 4 years within the Responsible Research and Innovation framework, exploring the concept of ‘social lab’.
One such ‘social lab’ was implemented at the JRC where two of the RRI’s key pillars were explored through a pilot project about Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs): citizen engagement and ethics.
The toolkit provides readers with various tools to implement citizen engagement and to carry out participatory ethical dialogues, based on the collaborative and transdisciplinary experience of 3 units at the JRC around social and ethical implications of CAVs.
The toolkit proposes that the journey, i.e., process and tools used in the pilot project on CAVS can be used in many other processes of (responsible) research for policy.
It provides guidance, questions and suggestions and links those with practical examples from the activities carried out in the pilot project.