There is already experience with RRI issues in industry, for example in connection with Nanoscience and Nanotechnologies. Now that other domains are drawing public attention (e.g. synthetic biology, geo-engineering), the challenge is to take stock, drawing also on existing analyses, and to progress further in integrating RRI in industrial contexts.
The challenge is to operationalise an Open Science rationale for one or more of the societal challenges defined under Horizon 2020. This should be done by a knowledge coalition based on a quadruple helix model of innovation in which civil society organisations, industry, government and academia are committed to work together and share knowledge and data among each other and interested third parties, thus putting Open Science in action in order to produce Responsible Research and Innovation solutions for a particular societal challenge.
The challenge is to model and better understand the dynamics of the complex webs of innovation value chains and the openings they offer for RRI. The key idea is that of crisscrossing 'innovation value chains'. Innovations and prototypes, business-to-business products and final products move from one organization (entity) to another and are transformed in the process, value is added in the transactions and appropriated. Third-party actors are involved such as standardization bodies and insurance companies, but also, and increasingly, NGOs.
The ICT centred research methodologies is changing the way research is organised, proposed and conducted. The untapped potential of Social media for example is fast becoming a new arena of research activities, also generating new challenges for the existing ethical and legal framework. Of paramount importance in this area is the balance between the use of ICT technologies to collect massive amounts of data (including personal data) and the principles of fundamental rights.
Evidence is needed on how the RRI approach, in particular the opening up of the innovation process to social actors, can improve the development process and the quality of the final outcomes of research and innovation in the industrial context. Existing initiatives such as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) have set first steps but improved business governance is needed that deeply embeds creativity, scalability, responsiveness, "glocality", circularity and societal engagement.
