Regional Action Plan to support the governance of Responsible Research & Innovation in the Southern & Eastern Regional Operational Programme 2014 - 2020
The Project and the Action Plan
The European Commission states that “research and innovation must respond to the needs and ambitions of society, reflect its values, and be responsible.” This means that while innovation is essential for our enterprises to compete on the global market, it also has the potential to change lives for the better. However, there are too many examples of innovations that have reached the market only to reveal negative impacts. We have seen examples of medicine that has had fatal consequences; we have seen the impact that large-scale transport and mass-agricultural production techniques have had on our environment; we are still finding out about the health and safety issues surrounding digitalisation. Responsible Innovation (RI) is an attempt to anticipate such negative impacts and to redirect innovation towards a model that reflects on impact from the start of product invention, design and production. RI engages with the public, the end-users of the product, in all development phases. RI encourages innovators to reflect on diversity, on ethics, on openness. It encourages them to anticipate and to govern their innovation. RI is a new concept and enterprises, particularly SMEs, are not always aware of it and of its potential benefits, or ready to apply it in their innovation processes. Public Authorities have a role here: they can raise awareness and capacity; they can provide incentives for its uptake; they can create favourable, collaborative
environments for RI; they can provide funding to experiment with tools to integrate RI into innovation processes. The MARIE project, co-funded by Interreg Europe, was designed to help the public sector to do just that. Public Authorities from 8 European regions have worked together to share experiences in RI in the context of their smart specialisation priority sectors. They have developed Action Plans that detail howmajor innovation funding programmes, including ERDF Regional Operational Programmes, will promote RI across their territories. Their objective is to ensure that regional public policy supports delivery of RI to enterprises’ product, process and service design, production and distribution.
Southern Regional Assembly | Regional Action Plan
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