Responsible Innovation: A Complementary View from Industry with Proposals for Bridging Different Perspectives

Marc Dreyer, Luc Chefneux, Anne Goldberg, Joachim Von Heimburg, Norberto Patrignani, Monica Schofield and Chris Shilling
Additional contact information
Marc Dreyer: FUTOPEDIA, Champsot 28, CH-1822 Sonzier, Switzerland
Luc Chefneux: Académie royale de Belgique, rue Ducale 1, 1000 Brussels, Belgium
Anne Goldberg: Corporate Research & Innovation, Solvay Campus, 310 rue de Ransbeek, 1120 Bruxelles, Belgium
Joachim Von Heimburg: jvhinnovation GmbH, 4125 Riehen, Switzerland
Norberto Patrignani: Politecnico of Torino, Via S.G.Bosco 4, 10015 Ivrea, Italy
Monica Schofield: TUTECH INNOVATION GMBH, Harburger Schloßstr. 6-12, 21079 Hamburg, Germany
Chris Shilling: The Florin Partnership, Temple Ewell CT16 3DA, UK

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 10, 1-25

Abstract: This paper presents a consensus view on Responsible Innovation by a group of industry practitioners, each with high level management experience in driving innovation from within industrial companies operating in different sectors. The authors argue that, while a substantial body of academic research on Responsible Research & Innovation (RRI) of potential interest now exists, it is failing to have impact in the industrial community, where it is understood to be partially targeted, because many of the concepts, tools and methodologies are not aligned with current industrial practices. This is leading to a misconception as to where industry stands on topics addressed by RRI and difficulties in forwarding a dialogue that is meaningful to both parties. The need to distinguish between processes relating to research and innovation is argued, together with the view that research into RRI should encompass more of the on-going work being carried out in related fields such as the role of companies in society, the debate around Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Shared Value (CSV), responsible digital innovation, the elements of ethical leadership, sustainable investment policies and work on establishing social impact factors as well as public concerns on innovation. Directions for an alignment of the terminology and concepts are also proposed. This paper is to be viewed as an attempt at bridging perspectives with the aim of finding common ground to develop the field of RRI further so that it provides effective concepts, tools and methodologies to guide industrial innovation towards better societal outcomes.

Keywords: RRI; Responsible Research and Innovation; research integrity; responsible innovation; trust; responsible digital innovation; Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR); Corporate Shared Values (CSV); Sustainable Development Goals (SDG); values; ethical leadership; business ethics; responsible investments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/10/1719/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/10/1719/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:9:y:2017:i:10:p:1719-:d:113182

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().