RESPONSIBLE INNOVATION: A PRACTITIONER’S VIEW ON HOW TO PUT IT INTO PRACTICE

Abstract

There is a widespread perception that our business and innovation models must change to be better aligned with
societal expectations and pressures on our planet’s resources and resilience. This perception has increased since
the 2008 financial crisis, as has an awareness that traditional models of business success, based only on
financial and regulatory frameworks, are not properly addressing the impact of accelerating change. It is in this
context that movements such as responsible innovation, ethical innovation and sustainable finance have
emerged. Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) has emerged as a field of academic research, but so far
with little impact upon - or connection to - the business and industry community. As an independent working
group of industrial research and innovation managers, we examine from a practitioner’s point of view the
profound differences between the research and innovation processes. We also consider the need for different
assessment tools to measure the success of each of these processes. We link the framework of responsible
innovation to the concept of sustainable finance as a critical way of steering priorities, and highlight their
commonalities. It is our premise that the responsible and ethical components of innovation must now become
part of any innovation project’s design criteria, in the same way that the quality concerns first raised in the
1950s, and the environmental issues revealed in the 1970s, already have. Failing to embed societal impact in
the innovation process will increase the risk that innovation could generate unintended adverse consequences
and/or be rejected by society, which will result ultimately in financial penalties. We propose ways to avoid this
outcome.