Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) has been a core theme for the third phase of Horizon, jointly with the Trustworthy Autonomous Systems (TAS) Hub and now Responsible AI (RAi) UK. This has included a series of dedicated internal projects focussing specifically on RRI, including this one – HoRRIzon 3.0 – which is now drawing to a close. We consider here some of the lessons learnt along the way and highlight some of the resources that we have created to support RRI.
Reflecting on our experiences of supporting other Horizon and TAS projects in RRI [1] we have come to appreciate the specific opportunities and benefits of embedding and supporting RRI within significant research programmes such as Horizon. In terms of RRI, at a larger (macro) scale, institutions have many roles to play, for example in governance and oversight of research ethics. Meanwhile, at a smaller (micro) scale, researching responsibly requires time and thought from every individual project – including those most knowledgeable and invested in that particular activity. Between these two “levels”, research programmes such as Horizon – and other meso-scale entities such as research groups or departments – bring together a rolling portfolio of projects and their associated staff.
At the level of Horizon as a whole, this collective focus on Responsible Research and Innovation has allowed us to:
We encourage other research programmes and groups to provide comparable core support for RRI in their own context.
The way in which RRI is interpreted and implemented depends to a significant degree on how the researchers, scholars and practitioners – who work on RRI – see their own work. We have also been working with colleagues in Horizon, TAS, and further afield, to come to a better understanding of which roles RRI researchers adopt. An understanding of these roles may help contextualise RRI activities, including project dynamics, but also expected outputs and impacts of RRI activities. We undertook an online survey collecting both quantitative and qualitative data on the roles that RRI researchers assume. Its findings confirm that RRI researchers assume some of the roles described in the responsible innovation literature. However, the data shows that some of the roles from the literature were not adopted and there were several additional roles not part of the literature. The findings of this research are expected to be published in the Journal of Responsible Innovation. The work has furthermore provided the basis for a more general model of responsible research activity which is being tested using a large-scale and international quantitative survey. We hope to be able to report our findings soon.
With colleagues in TAS we have also reviewed the overall success of efforts to foreground and support RRI through a survey and a reflective workshop. Responses highlighted that the requirement (in both Horizon and TAS) to explicitly address RRI on all research proposals helped to increase and normalise consideration of responsibility in all projects. However, responses indicated that there was still room for improvement, which may reflect the greater diversity of TAS compared to Horizon in terms of methodologies and disciplines. In particular, some people remained unaware of what resources and support were available for RRI, suggesting a need to better raise awareness of available resources. Others felt that the available resources – and understandings of responsibility – had little relevance to the kinds of work that they were doing, suggesting that there is still room for further specialisation or diversity of RRI support in some areas. There was also a wish to be able to access RRI support and training in a way that suited the individual, e.g. discussion-based vs information delivery-based, web-based vs in-person, formal vs informal, and assuming a range of “levels” of previous knowledge.
In many ways, conducting research and innovation responsibly means looking at the world in a way that is open-minded, questioning and inclusive, rather than just applying specific tools or methods. However, we have found that practical tools and resources can still be very useful in helping to communicate and develop this kind of mindset. We highlight some resources that may be helpful to other researchers and innovators: the EduRRI training toolkit; the Cards for Responsibility mini-site, which includes the RI Prompts and Practice cards, the Moral-IT cards and the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) cards; and the Cardographer software.
The EduRRI Toolkit [2], developed with support from the TAS Hub, is a teaching resource specifically designed to introduce aspects of responsible research and innovation (RRI). At its heart are (currently) two short stories or narratives describing the development of fictional technology innovations, one specifically including AI. The toolkit includes a set of questions or discussion prompts, for example, critique the story as written. Using stories as a basis can effectively engage participants with thoughts AND feelings and provide a structure in which almost anyone can engage with complex themes in a realistic context. The toolkit has been tested with three focus groups of doctoral students and researchers, who felt that this story-based approach was an engaging way of learning about and discussing RRI and facilitated creativity.
The Cards for Responsibility mini-site [3] is a new web resource that provides a single point of entry for researchers wanting to explore the use of card-based tools for RRI.
Currently it brings together an overview plus introductory material and resource links for three established card decks useful in RRI: the RI Prompts and Practice cards, Moral-IT cards and EDI Cards which are described in turn below. As you can probably tell, we really like cards! We have found that cards have a physical, aesthetic and interactive appeal that enables and encourages engagement and discussion, both in person and online. Card-based tools break down complex issues into individual cards that can prompt discussion and engagement, while remaining flexible in their use.
If you have been following the hoRRIzon RRI project blogs (hoRRIzon 2.0 : intro blog, mid blog, final blog and hoRRIzon 1.0 : intro blog, mid blog, final blog), then you will already know about the Responsible Innovation Prompts and Practice cards (RI Cards)[4,5]. These cards are based on the AREA-Plus framework for RRI, which is a matrix of responsibility-related activities (Anticipate, Reflect, Engage and Act) and research perspectives (Purpose, Product, People and Process). A real strength of this deck is its simplicity and conciseness: there are only 16 core cards, each of which has a small number of questions (prompts) for reflection and possible actions (practices) that could enhance responsibility. Later versions of the card deck include several supporting cards with extra information and suggested activities, to make a compact and self-contained resource that can be used in lots of different ways, for example to teach the basics of responsible innovation, or to refine a research idea. To date, over 300 physical decks of cards have been disseminated internationally. The cards have been used to promote and encourage responsible innovation practice within various sectors including academia, public and private and have been used in more than 50 workshops, training sessions events and conferences (national and internationally). The feedback from the RI Cards has been extremely positive. Same examples of what people told us about their experience from RI Cards:
‘They’re very clear, and the questions always spark discussions – whether it’s about something that’s currently being done well, or something that could be done better.’ (Researcher, TAS)
‘Format is very easy to understand…I liked the prompt cards to categorise them into things that were high priority, already doing etc…’ (Industry, UK)
‘Before this exercise, I was not aware of this concept [RI]. Now I have realized this useful resource for my future projects.’ (Postgraduate student, USA)
‘I recommended them to previous colleagues to help them scope the RRI portion of their grant proposals.’ (Academic, TAS)
In collaboration with RAi UK we have produced a promotional video featuring stakeholders from academia, the public sector and UKRI, sharing their views and perspectives on using this tool. The video will be launched in the coming weeks!
The Moral-IT cards [6,7] – developed in earlier research – are a larger and more detailed set of cards which are intended to help people consider ethical questions in relation to technology, with particular consideration for uses of personal data. They were inspired by legislative changes, such as the General Data Protection Regulation, and respond to the need to build legal compliance into technologies by design and default. They are divided into five categories: Narrative (questions and prompts), Ethics, Security, Law and Privacy. These have been used with several Horizon (and other) projects to explore these aspects of responsibility.
The Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) cards [8,9] are a deck of cards designed to facilitate discussion and support engagement with equality, diversity and inclusion issues. They were developed with support from Connected Everything, TAS and the University of Nottingham. The cards are organised into 12 categories, which can be grouped into four broad areas: Definitions, Scenario, “What am I going to do?” and Complications and Practicalities. There are a range of supporting resources available from the web page, including a facilitator’s guide, introductory video and a range of suggested activities.
Finally, the Cardographer web platform [10] is an open-source solution for creating, using and analysing pre-defined concept cards, including the RI Prompts and Practices, EDI and Moral-IT cards. It has been used to create the RI cards, and to make digital versions of the RI [11], EDI [12] and Moral-IT [13] cards available in a phone-friendly way. It can also be linked to the Miro online whiteboard platform to run online card-based activities. When used with Miro, Cardographer provides a mobile-friendly web view of the cards, including optional “hands”, and allows you to save the state of the cards on the board for subsequent analysis (see more details on the github Wiki). You are welcome to host Cardographer yourself, or – for limited use. As a guest user you can explore some of the existing decks, or you can register as a basic user if want to run your own sessions in Miro and support or analyse them in Cardographer. If want to try also building a card deck or you need to increase your session quota, email kevin.glover@nottingham.ac.uk or chris.greenhalgh@nottingham.ac.uk
[1] Stahl, Bernd Carsten, Virginia Portillo, Hanne Wagner, Peter J. Craigon, Dimitrios Darzentas, Santiago De Ossorno Garcia, Liz Dowthwaite, et al. 2024. “Implementing Responsible Innovation: The Role of the Meso-Level(s) between Project and Organisation.” Journal of Responsible Innovation 11 (1). https://doi.org/10.1080/23299460.2024.2370934
[2] Zamani, Efpraxia D., Anna-Maria Piskopani, and Elvira Perez Vallejos. ‘EduRRI Toolkit’. Zenodo, 27 November 2024. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14228616.
[3] Craigon, Peter, and Greenhalgh, Chris. 2025. “Cards for Responsibility”, https://cardographer.cs.nott.ac.uk/cards/, verified 2025-02-04.
[4] Virginia Portillo, Chris Greenhalgh, Peter J. Craigon, and Carolyn Ten Holter. 2023. Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) Prompts and Practice Cards: a Tool to Support Responsible Practice. In Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Trustworthy Autonomous Systems (TAS ’23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 57, 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1145/3597512.3599721
[5] Greenhalgh, Chris, Craigon, Peter, Portillo, Virginia, Dowthwaite, Liz, Perez Vallejos, Elvira, Webb, Helena, Wagner, Hanne Gesine, Stahl, Bernd Carsten, Ten Holter, Carolyn. 2023. “Responsible Innovation (RI) Prompts and Practice Cards (version 3.1.1, November 2023)”. http://doi.org/10.17639/nott.7353
[6] D. Urquhart, Lachlan, and Peter J. Craigon. 2021. “The Moral-IT Deck: A Tool for Ethics by Design.” Journal of Responsible Innovation 8 (1): 94–126. https://doi.org/10.1080/23299460.2021.1880112
[7] Peter Craigon, Debra Fearnshaw, Oliver Fisher and Emma Hadfield-Hudson. 2024. “Equality, Diversity and Inclusion cards”. https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/edi/university-initiatives/edi-cards.aspx verified 2025-01-29
[8] Peter Craigon, Debra Fearnshaw, Oliver Fisher, and Emma Hadfield-Hudson. 2023. The Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Cards – Introduction and Work in Progress. In Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Trustworthy Autonomous Systems (TAS ’23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 32, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1145/3597512.3597515
[9] Lachlan Urquhart and Peter Craigon. 2018. “Moral-IT Cards”. https://lachlansresearch.com/the-moral-it-legal-it-decks/ verified 2025-01-29
[10] Kevin Glover, Chris Greenhalgh. 2025. ”Cardographer Platform” (source code and instructions). https://github.com/MixedRealityLab/cardographer-platform verified 2025-01-29
[11] “RI Prompts and Practice Cards” in Cardographer web app, https://cardographer.cs.nott.ac.uk/sessions/64be3ee7f2068c32233f71f2/cards verified 2025-01-29
[12] “EDI Cards” in Cardographer web app, https://cardographer.cs.nott.ac.uk/sessions/63fc86fa6248425d4567a33a/cards verified 2025-01-29
[13] “Moral-IT Deck” in Cardographer web app, https://cardographer.cs.nott.ac.uk/sessions/67a2115886d967fa40e4f3d1/cards verified 2025-02-04
Horizon Digital Economy Research, University of
Nottingham Innovation Park, Triumph Road, Nottingham,
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horizon@nottingham.ac.uk
