The aim of the initial set of activities was to find out which specific ethical and regulatory challenges EIC researchers faced during the commercialisation stage of their project. This involved conducting 40 semi-structured interviews and then conducting a gap analysis from the findings. Following on from this, the EMBRACE team identified the need for RRI services and the challenges that need to be addressed for EIC pathfinders.
The aggregated interests and qualitative analysis gave a clear indication of which services are most likely to find a market. Following this pilot testing of the potential services with EIC pathfinders via online 3 focus groups were conducted. The purpose of these pilot focus groups helped us to understand whether the services proposed in the service descriptions are of sufficient quality and met the needs of the potential customer groups. The EMBRACE project team assessed all potential services, distilled to be the most ‘in-demand’ by the researchers, for development into fully fledged commercial offerings and evaluated these against a set of relevant criteria that were: ease of development, relevance to RRI, ability to deliver, resource requirements and availability of expertise. The top four commercially viable services were selected for detail development and trialled through focus group discussion by EIC coordinators, on the content specificity and refinement of the training as both an online and in-person mode of delivery.
As a result, the EMBRACE proposed and developed one more service than originally planned in the DoA. This allowed the project a higher degree of flexibility in terms of testing and eventual roll-out of the training courses. The project was successful in helping the project develop service options and provided the basis for the subsequent validation of the RRI services. Each of the services was deployed twice i.e. in an online and a face to face style and delivered to a target audience of academics, postgraduates, scientists, and those working in policy making.
The four service training offered (online) were:
An introduction to Data Governance
An introduction to Stakeholder Engagement Services
An introduction to the Design of Ethical AI Systems
An introduction to Research Integrity
Following this, the services presented face to face in Brussels were:
Data Governance Foundations
Stakeholder Engagement Services
Design of Ethical AI Systems
Research Integrity
Following the validation and review of these training courses, they were rolled out to a commercial audience. This included their advertisement to more than 250 FET project leaders and contributors and a marketing campaign to all existing customers of ORBIT-RRI limited.
