RRI2SCALE

The province of Overijssel and the University of Twente signed a collaboration agreement in 2018, which resulted in the joint participation in this European project. The method chosen for the project matches the vision of UT, as defined in strategy Shaping 2030, which focuses on Citizen Science, Responsible Design, Open Science and Public Engagement. 

Within RRI2SCALE, DesignLab is responsible for setting up workshops in the four regions on future scenarios and regional innovation agendas. DesignLab explicitly focuses on Citizen Science and involving citizens in designing solutions to social challenges, such as energy transition, sustainable mobility, and smart cities. With Responsible Design and Citizen Science as its focus areas, DesignLab is well equipped for this.

Both at the national and international level, more and more
people recognize the need to design and carry out responsible research and innovation RRI, which entails the design of inclusive and sustainable research and innovation. The goal of the project was to design an approach between 2020 to 2023, to enable regions to make their research and innovation policies inclusive and future-proof. Apart from Overijssel, the European regions Galicia, Crete, and the Norwegian Vestland participated.

One of the most pressing and complicated issues for EU regions is that of designing and developing regional innovation policies that promote sustainable development, societal inclusion and citizen participation under a framework of democratic governance.

RRI2SCALE aims to foster this process in four pilot EU regions by empowering the regional ecosystems and boosting their future development trajectories in the Research & Innovation (R&I) domain. The project’s pilot actions are operationalised upon a triple scheme of “smart cities – transport – energy”, all of which are considered institutional vehicles for sustainable growth. The ultimate end is to introduce a new democratic model of governance in the regional R&I ecosystems.

Seeking to embed Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) processes into the current R&I ecosystems, DesignLab was responsible for mapping and understanding societal signals that exist within the selected regions. DesignLab was also responsible for the design of the communication strategy and leading the project’s communication activities.

Dr. Anne Dijkstra, researcher in the field of Science Communication and a DesignLab Research Fellow, is responsible for research and development of techno-moral scenarios within this project.

The project is a great way to better connect the university with what is happening in the region, and to take this into account in research

Anne Dijkstra shares 'There is a lot of work done on responsible innovation, but not on regional innovation. For this project we used the framework of Scenario Exploration System as a tool to start a multi-stakeholder dialogue with partners in four different regions: Galicia, Spain, Overijssel, The Netherlands, Vestland, Norway, and Crete, Greece. 

Workshops were held for different stakeholders such as policymakers, business people, academics, civil society, and organisations. The workshops put emphasis on the fact that there is a public voice. With the help of the scenarios, based on the three challenges that the region is facing (smart transportation, energy transition, and smart cities) the team builds up scenarios, and listens to them. Everyone is trying to take action in the role of the actual explorer. The DreamTeam, researchers, stakeholders contributed in adapting this tool for the purpose of this project.