Fostering Improved Training Tools for Responsible Research and Innovation (FIT4RRI)
Project funded by the Europen Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme
Grant Agreement n. 741477
Duration: 36 months
Start date: 01/05/2017
The project is intended to favour the embedment of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and Open Science (OS) practices and approaches among European research organisations. Its main aim is understanding the main obstacles hindering or slowing down the diffusion of RRI and OS and developing new strategies and tools able to effectively addressing them.
The project includes three strands: the analytical, the testing and the proactive strand.
The analytical strand is aimed at developing a comprehensive analysis of the RRI and OS in the European research organisations, with special reference to general trends, barriers, drivers, and experiences conducted in this domain. Specific actions will be also done to understand differences among national contexts and research fields.
In the testing strand, four experiments will be developed in as many research organisations, with the aim of testing some of the outputs of the analytical strand. The experiments will concern different research fields (energy, photonics, material sciences and data mining) and will be organised following a common structure, so as to produce comparable results.
The proactive strand will be focused on the development of practical tools favouring the activation of RRI-oriented institutional changes, leveraging upon the results of the previous strands. On the one side, new training tools will be developed and applied in order to improve the overall quality and impact of the existing training offer on RRI and OS. On the other side, a set of guidelines (Guidelines on the governance setting of RRI) will be drafted and made available on the web, with the aim of provide research organisations with a practical guidance for identifying and implementing a self-tailored and realistic approach to RRI and OS.
The project is carried out by a Consortium of 13 organisations from 9 countries, led by the Sapienza University of Rome.
Knowledge & Innovation is mainly involved in the analytical strand, through the production of an extensive literature review on RRI and OS and the implementation of a benchmarking exercise aimed at identifying effective strategies for embedding RRI and OS in research organisations. Moreover, in the proactive strand, K&I will be also in charge of designing and drafting the Guidelines on the governance setting of RRI.
News
September 29-October 1, 2020The FIT4RRI virtual final summit “#RRI4real”, will take place each forenoon (9.30 to 13.00) from September 29 till October 1, 2020. In the three years of implementation, FIT4RRI Project brought together experts from nine European countries, who analysed and tested how to foster the real uptake of Responsible Research & Innovation and Open Science in the European research institutions. The summit provides an arena for reflection on three areas of issues:− RRI culture and skills – September 29, 2020− RRI and institutional change – September 30, 2020− RRI in policies – October 1, 2020.The programme on the ...
K&I is involved in the organization of a set of 5 workshops aimed at getting expert opinions on some of the issues dealt with in the FIT4RRI Guidelines “Starting the process – Guidelines on governance settings for responsible and open science”, drafted by Luciano d’Andrea and Federico L. Marta (K&I). Because of the Covid-19 outbreak, the workshops, originally planned as public events organized in 5 different European countries, have been moved online. Two workshops have been held respectively on 2 of June, with the participation of Portuguese experts, and on 4 of June, involving Greek experts. Another workshop will be ...
The Kick-off Meeting of the STEP CHANGE Project has been held online on March 15th and 16th, 2021. The first day, after some introductory words by Klavdija Kutnar, Rector of the University of Primorska (the institution leading the project), Yiannis Vacondios, Project Officer of the EC Research Executive Agency, provided a set of information related to the management of the project while Linden Farrer, EC Policy Officer, dwelled upon the policy context and the future perspective of RRI in the new Horizon Europe Framework Programme. Subsequently, Elena Bužan (from the University of Primoska and project coordinator) offered an overview of ...
The Guidelines on Governance Settings, produced by K&I, are being published. They are aimed at providing European research institutions practical orientations to launch a coordinated set of actions on Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). The Guidelines will be delivered in three versions: the complete version, available online; a short version, downloadable in pdf format; an executive summary, which will be published and distributed at the FIT4RRI Final Summit (Rome, April 2020) ...
FIT4RRI is organizing its final summit, titled “RRI for real”, which will be held on March 19-20, 2020 at Sapienza University, Rome. The Summit will include three main strands, respectively devoted to: RRI culture and skills, RRI institutional change and RRI in policies. The event will convene researchers, EC policymakers, civil society representatives and organisations, industry & business, representatives from related projects, librarians and the education community to reflect and exchange views about how to foster the real uptake of Responsible Research & Innovation and Open Science ...
The FIT4RRI General Assembly Meeting was held in Thessaloniki, in Greece, on September 30 and October 1 2019, hosted by SEERC, one of the project consortium members. The meeting mainly focused on the conclusion of the experiments of application of RRI in four different partner organizations, the publication of the Guidelines of Governance Settings (developed by K&I) and the preparation of the FIT4RRI Final Summit, to be held in Rome in April 2020. K&I was represented by Luciano d’Andrea and Fabio Feudo ...
The second issue of the FIT4RRI project Newsletter is online (https://mailchi.mp/fe93eed57dec/september19).In this issue, the main news concern:− The launch of the FIT4RRI Awareness & Consensus Survey, addressed to researchers and stakeholders, which is intended to get information on awareness and orientations of scientists and stakeholders towards Responsible Research and Innovation – and Open Science.− The FIT4RRI Final Summit which will take place in Rome at Sapienza University on March 19-20, 2020− The participation of FIT4RRI project in the Open Science Fair, held in Porto (Portugal) on September 16-19, 2019− The RRI and Open Science Trainer Bootcamp, a training initiatives focused ...
On February 19, 2019, Luciano d’Andrea (Knowledge & Innovation) gave a lecture on “Critical Trends shaping Science” in a webinar organised in the framework of the FIT4RRI project. The lecture was aimed at presenting the main results of the activities carried out under Work Package 1 of the project, devoted to the analysis of the main trends and barriers pertaining to Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). In the contribution, d’Andrea highlighted the need to go beyond a merely prescriptive view of RRI and proposed a possible framework for interpreting it in a different way. Within such a framework, RRI can ...
On October 16 2018, the FIT4RRI Mid-term Review Meeting was held at the venue of the Research Executive Agency (REA) of the European Commission in Brussels. On October 17, the FIT4RRI General Assembly Meeting was also held at the La Sapienza University Brussel Office. In the meeting, together with the project partners, three members of the FIT4RRI Board of Advisors also participated, i.e., Ildiko Ipolyi (European Science Foundation), Markku Mattila (University of Helsinki) and Marco Falzetti (APRE) ...
Luciano d’Andrea, K&I Team leader in the FIT4RRI project, participated in the S.NET 2018 Annual Conference, organised by the Society for the Studies of New and Emerging Technologies (S.NET) held in Maastricht on June 25-27 2018. d’Andrea presented a paper titled “Anticipation as social process: scanning society for grasping the future”, largely based on the results of the Literature Review on changes occurring in science and on RRI (Responsible Research and Innovation), carried out under WP1 of the FIT4RRI project ...
The University of Minho hosted in Braga (Portugal), between 23 and 25 May 2018, the General Assembly Meeting of the FIT4RRI project. The first day was devoted to the presentation of the results of WP1 (led by K&I) and WP2, which are close to be completed. The second day, the focus was on WP3 and WP4, respectively devoted to the conduction of 4 experiments oriented to Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and to the development of more advanced training tools on RRI. The third day a Training Tools Workshop on RRI has been organised by the four partners of the ...
In the framework of WP1, led by K&I, of the FIT4RRI project, a set of Context Tailoring Meetings and interviews have been conducted in Finland, Greece, Italy and the Netherlands between November 2017 and May 2018. Their main objective has been that of contextualizing the contents and conclusions of the Literature Review, carried out under the same WP, about the transformations taking place in science and the factors hindering the diffusion of RRI among research organisations. Overall, 59 people have been involved, including researchers, university administrative staff members as well as representatives of industry, civil society organisations, and governments ...
On April 30 2018, K&I delivered to the European Commission the Benchmarking Report, which is the second product developed under WP1 of the FIT4RRI project. The report describes the main outputs of the analysis of experiences focused on the application of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) strategies and practices. The analysis initially concerned 302 experiences related to RRI. After a selective process 42 advanced experiences have been identified and 18 of them have been studied. This led to pinpoint 36 transferable practices (benchmarks) which could be used for embedding RRI in research institutions ...
Luciano d’Andrea, team leader for K&I in the framework of the FIT4RRI project, participated in the international conference “Grappling with the Future”, held in Boston on April 29-30 2018, organised by Harvard University and the University of Boston. Luciano d’Andrea presented a paper, titled “Anticipatory process and social research: going beyond a prescriptive and policy-oriented view of anticipation” in which the main results emerging from FIT4RRI WP1, led by K&I, have been presented ...
K&I, together with Sapienza University of Rome, organised a “Sectoral workshop”, held in Rome on February 23 2018, in the framework of the WP2 of the FIT4RRI project, led by NTNU. The workshop is part of a set of five workshops also organised in the Netherlands, Finland, Norway and Portugal. The aim of the workshops are that of better understanding commonalities and differences about how RRI is practised, interpreted and perceived across research sectors and national contexts ...
A wide literature review has been developed and delivered to the European Commission on December 29 2017 by K&I in the framework of the FIT4RRI (Fostering Improved Training tools For Responsible Research and Innovation) project. The Literature Review deals with, on the one hand, the transformations affecting science and, on the other hand, the Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) approach, both in theoretical and in practical terms, thus providing a map of critical RRI-related issues challenging research organisations. The final part of the document is devoted to an interpretation of the main results of the literature review and the identification ...
On November 9 2017, the General Assembly Meeting of the FIT4RRI (Fostering Improved Training tools For Responsible Research and Innovation) project has been held in Trondheim (Norway), hosted by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. The meeting was aimed at discussing the results of the project in the first activity period (May-November 2017) and planning the activities between December 2017 and May 2018, when another General Assembly Meeting will be held in Braga (Portugal) ...
On June 12 and 13 2017, the Kick-off Meeting of the FIT4RRI (Fostering Improved Training tools For Responsible Research and Innovation) project has been held in Rome, hosted by Sapienza University of Rome, which is the project coordinator. The first day, after a presentation held by the Project Officer, Raluca Iagher, on the reporting obligations and administrative and financial rules established by the European Commission, each work package has been presented by the WP leaders (6 WPs are included in the project) followed by a discussion and the election of the members of the project Board. The second day was ...