The MARINA project established, experimented and continues to curate and constantly update a Responsible Research and Innovation Knowledge Sharing platform involving societal actors working together during the whole research and innovation process. This aims to better align both the process and its outcomes, with values, needs and expectations of the European society, integrating citizens visions, needs and desires into science and innovation, promoting RRI with focus on marine issues and pressures that have important effects on the European societies. The project, even if connected with marine research field, defined a systematic approach in order to make it transferable and reproducible for any RRI thematic domain. All project results and activities are extrapolated from the RRI marine fields to general RRI applicable for any innovative sector and they have been broadly disseminated.
Six specific objectives were targeted:
1. Engage citizens and stakeholders in a highly participatory debate/consultation/process for federating Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) communities and initiatives,
2. Create and validate a comprehensive networking and knowledge sharing platform (KSP) for relevant projects, service contracts, marine actors, educational institutions and citizens, to support and enable discussion, Mobilization and Mutual Learning, knowledge exchange and co-production of different communities related to the MARINA key strategic issues (environmental issues, sustainable development, policies and educational challenges) in the perspectives of the societal challenges and the RRI topics.
3. Federate RRI communities including citizens in the KSP through the online Web Knowledge Sharing Platform (WKSP), for experimentation, training and knowledge and expectation capturing to address the societal challenges by embedding RRI and for facilitating the dialogue and shared understanding among scientists, policymakers, citizens and other stakeholders.
4. Deliver guidelines and good practices for RRI application in innovation processes and promote them to CSOs, industry stakeholders, policy and decision makers, research funders, educational institutions to foster their adoption as a potential benchmark in setting-up RRI processes.
5. Provide recommendations and policy options for RRI relating it to Blue Growth and its challenges at EU, national and sub-national levels.
6. Communicate and Disseminate broadly in Europe from the beginning of the project for enabling the MARINA activities and creating RRI and marine issues awareness; as well as outside Europe through the partners’ and associated partners’ wide professional and social networks for highlighting the European leadership in RRI governance.
