Dear GRRIP odyssey companions, We come to the end of the GRRIP project!
Over the past four years, the GRRIP project has worked on embedding sustainable Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) practices in four research performing organisations (RPOs) and one dual-function RPO and research funding organisation (RFO) (total 5 RPOs&RFO) in the marine and maritime sector to achieve institutional and cultural change. These organisations are:
The Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Energy, Climate and Marine research and innovation, Ireland
Swansea University, United Kingdom
Institut Universitaire Mer et Littoral (Sea and Littoral Research Institute), France
The Oceanic Platform for the Canary Islands (PLOCAN), Spain
WavEC Offshore Renewables (WavEC), Portugal
Despite the multitude of challenges which are part of organisational change projects, compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, GRRIP has been successful in bringing about evidence-based institutional changes in the RRI areas of gender equality (and broader equality, diversity, and inclusion aspects), public engagement, science education, ethics, and open access. All reports from the project will be available on the GRRIP website soon! We take this opportunity to express our heartfelt thanks to you for joining us in this journey, as advisors and participants!
A highly successful EU-funded evidence-based project on institutional change had its final project conference on 1-2 December 2022, in Gran Canaria (Hybrid Event)
The conference gathered around 60 participants (in person in PLOCAN’s land premises and online).
GRRIP final conference in Gran Canaria
Gordon Dalton, GRRIP Project Coordinator welcomed the participants and invited them to the GRRIP Community which is one of the outputs of the GRRIP Project. “This has been a highly successful evidence-based project on institutional change. The project should be a role model for other research performing organisations and funding bodies to follow the same path of institutional change”, Dalton emphasised.
Seven different sessions with 34 talks and interspersed discussions on RRI implementation experiences gave the attendees an insightful overview of the Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) initiatives and GRRIP project outputs and other similar EU projects (Co-Change, GRACE, NewHoRRIzon, SuperMORRI). The sessions were:
Assessing RRI status at institutions;
Designing and selecting RRI-related interventions;
Implementing RRI: “A” Discussion on barriers to, and opportunities for, institutional change;
Multistakeholder engagement in research & innovation; Evaluating RRI implementation;
Evaluating RRI implementation
Stories of RRI implementation in organisations; and
Launch of marine and maritime RRI community.
The GRRIP project worked on embedding sustainable Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI practices) in 4 research performing organisations (RPO) and 1 dual-function RPO and research funding organisation (RPO/RFO) (total 5 RPO&RFO) in the marine and maritime sectors to achieve institutional change and it is set to conclude in December 2022.
It has overseen the creation of 18 to 30 interventions related to gender equality (also, equality, diversity and inclusion), science communication and education, ethics and research integrity, open access, and public engagement in four research performing organisations (RPO) and one dual-function RPO and research funding organisation (RFO) in the marine and maritime sector. This has been achieved with the help of seven RRI expert partners in the GRRIP consortium. Representatives of the Quadruple Helix (higher educational institutes, private sector, government, and civil society) have been engaged in this project at various stages and in different research and innovation aspects.
We’re pleased to present the latest edition of the GRRIP Project Newsletter. The Autumn 2022 edition contains:
Foreword by Professor Malcolm Fisk, Professor of Ageing and Digital Health in the Facultyof Computing, Engineering and Media at De Montfort University (page 1).
Interview with Jeremy Gault, formerly Beaufort Operations Manager and MaREI Thematic Lead for Coastal and Marine Systems (pages 2-5).
Partner Profile: MaREI (page 6).
Article by Eric Jensen, looking at stories of RRI implementation (pages 7-8).
Updates on the latest project related events and collaborations (page 9).
We’re pleased to present the latest edition of the GRRIP Project Newsletter. The Summer 2022 edition contains:
Foreword by Alexander Gerber, Full Professor and Programme Chair of Science Communication at Germany’s international Rhine-Waal University, and Research Director at the extramural Institute for Science and Innovation Communication (page 1).
Interview with Dr. Ruth Callaway, Senior Research Officer, Department of Biosciences at Swansea University (pages 2-4).
Partner Profile: Swansea University (page 5).
Article by Dr. Xiaoyue Tan and Prof. Dr. Hub Zwart entitled ‘GRRIP Project – collective reflection through Mutual Learning: a continuous process’ (pages 6-7).
Updates on the latest project related events and collaborations (pages 8-9).
Public engagement is a challenge for each researcher and research organization given professional and financial requirements and pressures.
But to add to this challenge, public engagement is also an ambiguous and multi-faceted term that can mean engagement with the public on different levels, different topics and with very different means.
In this GRRIP Project talk, delivered on Tuesday, June 21, Dr. Erich Griessler reflected on the NewHoRRIzon project, which set out to implement Responsible Research and Innovation across all research funding programmes of the European Framework Programme H2020.
In the NewHoRRIzon project, Dr. Griessler engaged, for over more than two years, in 19 social labs with more than 720 stakeholders of research and innovation and developed together with them more than 50 pilot actions, many of them on public engagement, to implement RRI in research and innovation.
Dr. Griessler explained the co-creation approach in NewHoRRIzon, which itself was based on stakeholder engagement, and presented some of the public engagement activities which were created in the Social Labs to shed some light on the many faces of public engagement.
Organized by GRRIP and delivered by Professor Alex Gerber (Rhine-Waal University) to internal consortium partners on Monday, June 20, this workshop provided an overview of how best to communicate sustainability issues researched within the Marine & Maritime sector.
Why is it that researchers and scientists still face public distrust in their work, even when supported by overwhelming evidence and widespread scientific consensus?
In the digital age, sceptics and bad-faith actors with access to communications platforms can easily sow the seeds of distrust that contribute to partisan views and continued rejections of the science. How do we as scientists and researchers navigate this terrain?
How can we overcome the disruptive efforts of sceptics and bad-faith actors and ensure that the science and its outcomes is clear, concise and easily understood by a wide swath of actors across the Quadruple Helix? By focusing on and understanding the causes and effects of insufficient science and media literacy education we can begin to move beyond the existing / accepted understanding of information behavior and the many outdated approaches currently favored for solving these issues.
Rather than focusing on attempts to educate stakeholders with technical competencies in order to ‘absorb’ facts and overcome ‘ignorance’, we should instead adopt a more pro-active, evidence-based approach, one that seeks to both understand and anticipate these stakeholders’ motivations and the potential reasons they may have for rejecting certain information or policies. Only then should tailored communication solutions be designed. Our understanding of what works (and why) in informal science education, has improved tremendously over the past two decades, allowing us to plan communication and social marketing initiatives with a greater chance to be effective and resource-efficient.
This workshop provided an overview of the state of the art, specifically in the context of communicating sustainability issues such as many of those researched and developed in the Marine & Maritime sector. Under discussion are the applicability of Responsible Research & Innovation frameworks to institutional settings in GRRIP to explore how ‘shared responsibilities’ can be managed in the Quadruple Helix environment.
GRRIP consortium members recently travelled to Lisbon to participate in the project’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) and for Mutual Learning sessions.
The two-day event was the first in-person meeting to take place in the project (after the kick off meeting in January 2019). The event was hosted by WavEC.
The event took place at the Museum of the Orient in Lisbon, Portugal, and was designed to be hybrid so that consortium members and participants unable to attend in person could join online.
The AGM was held on Tuesday, May 24. It featured updates on Responsible Research & Innovation (RRI) implementation pertaining to Work Package 7 from Ana Brito e Melo (WavEC), Ruth Callaway (Swansea University), Franck Schoefs (IUML), Silvia Martin (PLOCAN) and Jeremy Gault (MaREI).
It also included an update on monitoring of activities with regard to RRI implementation in the five M&M organisations from Malcom Fisk of De Montfort University and a presentation on the path forward for Deliverable 7.2 by ICORSA’s Eric Jensen.
The remainder of the AGM covered reflection and evaluation of Quadruple Helix (QH) engagement under Work Package 4 by Alex Gerber and Xiaoyue Tan (Erasmus University Rotterdam) and an update on RRI evaluation under Work Package 8, again by Xiaoyue Tan.
UNESCO’S Juliana Chaves-Chaparro, along with Patrizia Grifoni and Fernando Ferri of the National Research Council (Italy) presented their findings and discussed the model proposed for creating a Sustainable Marine & Maritime Community under Work Package 9.
Project Dissemination & Communications Officer Graham Lynch (University College Cork) presented updates on Work Package 2 progress to date as well as planned upcoming activities, before Project Coordinator Gordon Dalton (PLOCAN) brought proceedings to a close with his summary of Project Coordination, Standardisation and Methodology activities under Work Package 1.
Following the AGM, the group attended the offices of WavEC for a tour of the office, where consortium members met with staff and posed for a group photo.
The following day, Wednesday, May 25, the consortium members again met at the Museum of the Orient for the days scheduled Mutual Learning sessions. The event was also attended by GRRIP members virtually along with representatives from a number of other EU funded RRI focused projects.
Topics covered over the course of the session included “Reflections on QH engagement: a mutual learning dialogue” and “Sharing experiences and lessons learned from project implementation” both of which were facilitated by Erasmus University Rotterdam’s Hub Zwart.
A session entitled “Experiences and learnings of RRI implementation with other EU funded projects” sparked a wide-ranging conversation on the merits of RRI, the biggest obstacles faced and the path forward for successful integration of RRI principles in institutions. The session included contributions from Peter Biegelbauer, Mila Grahovac, Lalic Branislava, Erich Griessler, Alexander Gerber, and Penny Haworth: representatives of RRI focused projects Co-Change, NewHoRRIzon, and NUCLEUS. The session was moderated by Indrani Mahapatra, GRRIP’s Project Manager.
The day concluded with a detailed discussion of the potential creation of a sustainable and proactive Marine & Maritime Responsible Research & Innovation (RRI) community within the MARINA platform.
The GRRIP Project would like to sincerely thank WavEC for hosting the consortium in what turned out to be an extremely well-run event. The GRRIP Project now moves forward into its final stages with a completion date of December 2022.
We’re pleased to present the latest edition of the GRRIP Project Newsletter. The Spring 2022 edition contains:
Foreword by Dr. Eric Jensen, Senior Research Fellow, International Consortium of Research Staff Associations (ICoRSA) (page 1).
Interview with Professor Franck Schoefs, Director/CEO of the Sea and Littoral Research Institute (IUML), one of the five marine and maritime (M&M) case study sites in the GRRIP project implementing Responsible Research & Innovation (RRI) dimensions – during the interview Professor Schoefs discusses the implementation of RRI, the importance of societal engagement and how it benefits IUML as well as the Institute’s motivations for joining the GRRIP project (pages 2-4).
Partner Profile: FR CNRS 3473 Institut Universitaire Mer et Littoral/Sea and Littoral research Institute (IUML) (page 5).
Article by Dr Malcolm Fisk entitled ‘The RRI Implementation Journey: Barriers and Enablers’ (pages 6-7).
Updates on latest project related events and collaborations (pages 8-9).
This GRRIP organised workshop took place on Friday, March 25, 2022 and featured a presentation by Dr. Andrew Adams on the topic of ‘Opening up Research and Innovation’.
The session covered a number of RRI-related themes including:
Open data,
Open access,
Open science,
Open knowledge,
Open innovation.
In this session, Dr. Adams presented the philosophical and practical case for opening up research and innovation. He explains what ‘open’ means with regards to papers, data, science, innovation and knowledge and he outlines why researchers and innovators should care to make their work open.
The GRRIP Project was delighted to have Dr Adams agree to present. Dr Adams is eminently qualified to shed some light and share knowledge on the topic of open research and innovation. He is a multi-disciplinary researcher looking at social, legal, and ethical aspects of computer and communications technologies. His expertise is in Privacy and Data Protection, security, e-learning, copyright and freedom of speech. He has been a prominent open science activist for 20 years.
GRRIP is working on embedding sustainable Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI practices) in 4 research performing organisations (RPO) and 1 dual-function RPO and research funding organisation (RPO/RFO) (total 5 RPO&RFO) in the marine and maritime sectors to achieve institutional and cultural change.
In this video, representatives from the 5 sites (PLOCAN, MaREI, Swansea University, WavEC and IUML), detail their involvement with the GRRIP Project, and explain the actions being undertaken to address the six key pillars of Responsible Research & Innovation (Gender Equality, Open Access Data, Ethics, Public Engagement, Science Education, and Governance).
