Stepping-up institutional and territorial changes towards open and responsible research and innovation
Research and innovation institutions play a key role in creating an enabling environment for opening research and innovation towards society, sharing research outputs, improving research integrity and gender equality, and promoting science education, societal engagement (such as citizen science and other forms of co-design and co-creation) and two-way science communication. At territorial level, interactions between different institutions from across the quadruple helix[[A model of cooperation between industry, academia, civil society and public authorities, with a strong emphasis on citizens and their needs.]], and including societal actors such as civil society organisations and non-governmental organisations, are essential to ensuring that the processes and outcomes of research and innovation are aligned with the needs, values and expectations of society.
However, European research and innovation actors lack a consolidated evidence base and guidance based on EU investments in this area to date to support them, there are significant differences in attention to different aspects of responsibility and openness between institutions and territories, rewards and incentives at the workforce and institutional level are often misaligned or even disfavour openness to society, and there is no central point of reference or provider of services and expertise to turn to.
This action consists of three parts, all of which must be addressed:
The first involves consolidating the evidence base and develop innovative guidance and other materials, which can support institutions and territories to implement sustainable institutional changes and open up to society[[Institutional changes are characterised as: 1) a change to how the institution governs/structures itself, 2) expected to have meaningful impact within the institution concerned, 3) intended to last beyond the lifetime of funding (i.e. not one-off activities). See https://op.europa.eu/s/olV2.]]. It should take into account and build on the learning and knowledge developed by Horizon 2020’s Science with and for Society programme[[Particularly relevant projects to build upon were supported by: ISSI-5-2014, GARRI-1-2014, ISSI-5-2015, SwafS-04-2016, SwafS-05-2017, SwafS-05-2018-2019, SwafS-14-2018-2019-2020, SwafS-23-2020. Moreover, this action should build on the evidence base for benefits developed by the MoRRI and Super_MoRRI projects. Projects focused on implementing Gender Equality Plans under SwafS (including those supported by topics GERI-4-2014, SwafS-03-2016-2017, SwafS-09-2018-2019-2020) may also be of relevance. The RRI-Tools project, from FP7’s Science in Society programme, may also be relevant: https://rri-tools.eu/. ]] and potentially other sources of knowledge.
The second part involves financial support to third parties, by launching ‘cascading grant’ call(s) to support institutions and territories from across the ERA to implement sustainable institutional changes towards open and responsible research and innovation. This may require consultancy or other kinds of support services to be developed and rolled out to successful institutions. A significant number of institutional changes (e.g. 70-100 individual institutional changes) should be expected in beneficiary organisations and territories. As such, a significant proportion of the funding should be allocated to the ‘cascading grant’ mechanism. One or more call(s) for proposals should be launched, which could focus on specific disciplines, MoRRI country clusters[[https://op.europa.eu/s/olV4]], or other pertinent criteria, but with the underlying goal of reducing disparities between institutions and territories in terms of their attention to different dimensions of openness and responsibility.
The third part involves acting as a central point of expertise and support services on open and responsible research and innovation for institutions and projects under Horizon Europe and within the European Research Area. This point of expertise should have appropriate high-level visibility, and the ability to interact and support all parts of the research and innovation system (all parts of quadruple helix, disciplines, sectors). In order to achieve the expected outcomes, international networking is advised to support co-operation on the issue at global level and provide expertise in support of institutions and projects.
The action should evaluate its impacts and develop recommendations useful to policy makers and those responsible for the governance of research and innovation institutions. The action should raise awareness of the benefits of open and responsible research and innovation to organisations across the ERA. It should develop close co-operation with other relevant projects, with a view to fostering collaboration and the early sharing of knowledge and evidence.