What is Responsible Innovation?

Responsible Innovation is a process that seeks to promote creativity and opportunities for science and innovation that are socially desirable and undertaken in the public interest.

Research has the potential to not only produce understanding, knowledge, and value, but also unintended consequences, questions, ethical dilemmas, and social transformations. Responsible Innovation acknowledges that innovation can raise questions and dilemmas, is often ambiguous in terms of purposes and motivations and unpredictable in terms of impacts, beneficial or otherwise. It goes beyond consideration of ethics, public engagement, risk and regulation.

Expectations for researchers

The University expects our researchers to work within the principles of Responsible Innovation, exploring these aspects of innovation in an open, inclusive, and timely way.

We expect our research community to anticipate, reflect and engage on the wider ethical and societal impacts, implications and value of their work, entering into dialogue with the public and other stakeholders where appropriate, and respecting the views of others, as well as reflecting on personal and collective motivations for conducting the research.

Further Information

Further information including links to a variety of frameworks, tools and resources have been developed to support Responsible Innovation can be found here:

https://warwick.ac.uk/services/ris/impactinnovation/responsible_innovation/