The European Intersectoral Summit on Research and Innovation is a European meeting organised by Atomium – European Institute for Science, Media and Democracy every eighteen months dedicated to research and innovation. It is designed to create a unique opportunity…
Citizens have a right — and are expected — to be involved in the crucial decisions of what their futures will look like and how science and technology can contribute to its betterment.
The framework for Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) stresses the fact that grand societal challenges will have a better chance of being successfully tackled if all societal actors are fully engaged in the co-construction of innovative solutions, products and service. Thus RRI is being developed in order to foster the creation of a research and innovation policy driven by the needs of society and engaging all societal actors via inclusive participatory approaches. The RRI approach is supported via six keys: Engagement, Gender Equality, Science Education, Open Access, Ethics and Governance.
As outlined by Nobel Laureate and former Director General of CERN, Prof. Carlo Rubbia, the most severe scientific problems are those responding to long-term issues, like cancer, climate change or changing demographics. We need to critically assess how society and the different stakeholders can be engaged in the whole governance process to avoid the risk of investing only in short-term solutions; as Michael Faraday tells us: electricity was not invented by improving candles.