Taking Stock of RRI in 5 EU Territories

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One of TeRRItoria’s key ambitions is to enable our five territorial partners to develop a deeper understanding of how RRI is and could be relevant within their own context, and use that understanding to leverage their own thinking and leadership capacities to further the integration of RRI principles into the territorial contexts. The mapping process carried out as part of WP2 sought to collect relevant data in order to provide a complete and structured picture of the RRI and R&I landscape.

To enable the TeRRItoria partners to carry out a consistent mapping process, partner ARC Fund proposed a set of guidelines and data collection templates to guide the partners on the sources and scope of information required, as well as to ensure a standardised dataset at the end. Overall, TeRRItoria partners engaged in the so-called navigational mapping – focusing on discovering insights and highlighting relationships within the studied territories through the identification of actors, practices, influencing factors and policy developments. These provided solid grounds for reflection and learning, so that territorial partners would be better prepared to start with the conceptualisation and planning of territory-focusing actions that would lead to the better integration of RRI principles within the territorial R&I systems. In TeRRItoria, these sets of actions are referred to as territorial experiments, and provide an ample opportunity for territorial strategic leadership towards the mobilisation of local actor networks, identifying lingering challenges, and connecting them to policy priorities and agendas, thus also demonstrating first-hand the possibilities for RRI in diverse territorial contexts.

The mapping process also had a strong learning dimension, steering partners into a process of discovery and reflection through the RRI framework. It helped with connecting their findings to the underlying RRI keys, also helping them focus on specific applications or realisations of RRI-relevant actions. Thus, the mapping process helped raise awareness among other actors of the RRI concept – a key prerequisite for the successful integration of RRI into the territorial discourses.

The mapping process led to the identification of 159 actors, 92 practices and initiatives, 104 influencing factors, and 94 policy developments across the five participating territories in the project. The results will be useful throughout the TeRRItoria’s implementation, and are an important part of the project’s legacy, as a pilot probing into the territorial significance of RRI, with regards to both the framework itself, and to its individual constituting keys.

You can find the set of mapping tools by clicking here.


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