Responsible Innovation in Industry

2022/2023
Delft University of Technology

Study load: 3 ECTS / credit hours

Time frame: March-April 2023

Course coordinator(s)

Course teacher(s)

COURSE SUMMARY

How can companies assess and address uncertainties, potential risks and public and ethical concerns in their innovation projects? How can they ensure that new products and services are safe? How can their innovation strategies achieve commitment from all stakeholders and enhance competitiveness and profitability at the same time? This course looks into analyzing ethical, legal and social impacts, dealing with controversial or conflicting issues, organizing effective stakeholder engagement, communicating the company's RI vision across the organization and overcoming resistance when implementing RI strategies.

COURSE DETAILS

Course Objectives

In this course you get acquainted with some of the main elements of doing responsible innovation in industry: (1) leadership and the formulation of KPIs (key performance indicators; (2) stakeholder engagement (3) specific approaches for responsible innovation in industry like safe-by-design and design for values.

Learning Outcomes

After the course, you will be able to:

Reflect on the main differences being doing responsible innovation in an industry setting compared to others settings
Being able to define KPIs for responsible innovation in industry
Design stakeholder strategies for responsible innovation in industry
Define the possibilities and limitations of specific strategies like safe-by-design and design-for values for doing responsible innovation in an industry setting.

Course Format

This course is based on an existing online course offered by TU Delft, titled ‘Innovation Strategies for Socially Responsible Firms‘. Using the teaching approach of the ‘flipped classroom’, participants will be asked to watch the lectures of this online course individually. Live group sessions will subsequently be used for further discussing the material offered in these video lectures and the accompanying literature.

For each of the 6 modules, there will be a 2-hour live session with participants. You are expected to spend about 10-11 hours on each module, including watching the video lectures and reading the literature assigned. You will spend another 15-20 hours on preparing a presentation for a final 2-hour session that closes off the course.

Course Modules

Module 1: Introduction

Teacher: Ibo van de Poel

General introduction to the concept of RI and its key elements.
The importance of RI for addressing societal challenges.

Required reading:

van de Poel, Ibo, Lotte Asveld, Steven Flipse, Pim Klaassen, Victor Scholten, and Emad Yaghmaei. 2017. “Company Strategies for Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI): A Conceptual Model.” Sustainability 9 (11):2045.
van de Poel, Ibo, Lotte Asveld, Steven Flipse, Pim Klaassen, Zenlin Kwee, Maria Maia, Elvio Mantovani, Christopher Nathan, Andrea Porcari, and Emad Yaghmaei. 2020. “Learning to do responsible innovation in industry: six lessons.” Journal of Responsible Innovation 7 (3):697-707. doi: 10.1080/23299460.2020.1791506.

Module 2: Leadership and Key Performance Indicators

Teacher: Emad Yaghmaei

Defining and creating a culture of shared values for innovation;
Implications for leadership;
Defining key performance indicators for RI;
Alignment with other business objectives;
Examples and best practices.

Required readings

Stahl, Bernd Carsten, Michael Obach, Emad Yaghmaei, Veikko Ikonen, Kate Chatfield, and Alexander Brem. 2017. “The Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) Maturity Model: Linking Theory and Practice” Sustainability 9, no. 6: 1036. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9061036
Van de Poel, Ibo, Lotte Asveld, Steven Flipse, Pim Klaassen, Zenlin Kwee, Maria Maia, Elvio Mantovani, Christopher Nathan, Andrea Porcari & Emad Yaghmaei (2020) Learning to do responsible innovation in industry: six lessons, Journal of Responsible Innovation, 7:3, 697-707, DOI: 10.1080/23299460.2020.1791506
Yaghmaei, Emad. (2018). Responsible research and innovation key performance indicators in industry: A case study in the ICT domain. Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society. 16. 10.1108/JICES-11-2017-0066.
Chapter 8 of Yaghmaei, Emad & Ibo van de Poel (eds, 2021). Assessment of Responsible Innovation; Methods & Practices. Routledge.

Recommended readings

Yaghmaei, Emad & Ibo van de Poel (eds, 2021). Assessment of Responsible Innovation; Methods & Practices. Routledge (especially chapters 3, 14 and ‘Best practice IV: PRISMA KPI analysis tool’)
CWA 17796 Responsibility-by-design standard: https://www.nen.nl/cwa-17796-2021-en-288066

Module 3: Implementation of RI: Stakeholder Engagement

Teacher: Zenlin Roosenboom-Kwee

How to make stakeholder dialogue a success;
Translating results into optimizing products and services;
How to deal with public reactions that are hard to anticipate;
Risks of not involving stakeholders;
The importance of the gender and inclusiveness dimension;
Toolkit.

Required readings

Blok, V., Hoffmans, L., & Wubben, E. F. (2015). Stakeholder engagement for responsible innovation in the private sector: Critical issues and management practices. Journal on Chain and Network Science, 15(2), 147-164.
Silva, L. M. D., Bitencourt, C. C., Faccin, K., & Iakovleva, T. (2019). The role of stakeholders in the context of responsible innovation: A meta-synthesis. Sustainability, 11(6), 1766.

Recommended readings

Bacq, S., & Aguilera, R. V. (2022). Stakeholder governance for responsible innovation: A theory of value creation, appropriation, and distribution. Journal of management studies, 59(1), 29-60.
Gutierrez, L., Montiel, I., Surroca, J. A., & Tribo, J. A. (2022). Rainbow Wash or Rainbow Revolution? Dynamic Stakeholder Engagement for SDG-Driven Responsible Innovation. Journal of Business Ethics, 1-24.
Blok, V. (2019). From participation to interruption: Toward an ethics of stakeholder engagement, participation and partnership in corporate social responsibility and responsible innovation. In: International Handbook on Responsible Innovation. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Brand, T., & Blok, V. (2019). Responsible innovation in business: A critical reflection on deliberative engagement as a central governance mechanism. Journal of responsible innovation, 6(1), 4-24.

Module 4: Implementation of RI: Safe-by-Design

Teacher: Lotte Asveld

Explanation of the safe-by-design approach during the whole lifecycle of the product;
Dealing with risks and how to prevent unintended and unforeseen negative impacts;
How to create and nurture a safety culture;
Various risk assessment approaches.

Required readings

van de Poel, I., Robaey, Z. Safe-by-Design: from Safety to Responsibility. Nanoethics11, 297–306 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-017-0301-x
Bouchaut, B. and Asveld, L. (2020), Safe-by-Design: Stakeholders’ Perceptions and Expectations of How to Deal with Uncertain Risks of Emerging Biotechnologies in the Netherlands. Risk Analysis, 40: 1632-1644. https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.13501

Module 5: Implementation of RRI: Design-for-Values

Teacher: Ibo van de Poel

The Design-for-Values approach method;
Implications for the design process;
Practical examples of how to apply it and the value added;
Dealing with conflicting and changing values.

Required reading:

Van de Poel, Ibo. 2021. “Values and Design.” In Routledge Handbook to Philosophy of Engineering, edited by Diane P. Michelfelder and Neelke Doorn, 300-314. Routledge.
Davis, Janet, and Lisa P. Nathan. 2015. “Value Sensitive Design: Applications, Adaptations and Critiques.” In Handbook of ethics and values in technological design, edited by Jeroen van den Hoven, Pieter E. Vermaas and Ibo Van de Poel, 11-40. Springer.

Course Planning

Module 1: Wednesday 22 March, 19.00-22.00 CET (10.00am -12.00am AZ)
Module 2: Tuesday 28 March, 18.00-20.00 CET (9.00-11.00 am AZ)
Module 3: Tuesday 4 April, 18.00-20.00 CET (9.00-11.00 am AZ)
Module 4: Tuesday 11 April, 18.00-20.00 CET (9.00-11.00 am AZ)
Module 5: Tuesday 25 April, 19.00-22.00 CET (10.00am -12.00am AZ)
Final meeting: Thursday 11 May, 19.00-22.00 CET (10.00am -12.00am AZ)

Course Requirements

To pass this course, you are expected to:

Actively prepare for and participate in the meetings connected to the modules;
Get a passing grade on a presentation that you prepare on a topic of your choice for the 6th and final 2-hour meeting.

Acknowledgement

The contents of this course is partly based on the EU-funded project ‘Piloting RRI in Industry: a roadmap for tranSforMAtive technologies‘, which ran from 2016 to 2019.

Go to course overview