Copenhagen

Jonny Hankins of the Bassetti Foundation posted a blog about the first annual meeting of the Virtual Institute for Responsible Innovation (VIRI), held 14 – 16 July, 2015, in Sussex, UK. 

In their new commentary, "Improving Science-Society Dialogue Takes Practice," Maja Horst, professor and department head in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Copenhagen, and coauthor Sofie Carsten Nielsen, the Danish minister for Science and Higher Education, make a case for improving dialogue between researchers and citizens, discuss the challenges to doing so, and make recommendations for future dialogue efforts. You can read the commentary here: 

On December 11 the conference on RRI, organized by VIRI member Maja Horst, was held in Copenhagen. The Danish minister of higher education gave a speech, "Research Must Not Be a Closed Circuit." 

While the need for responsible research is becoming more widely accepted, scientists still disagree on what "social responsibility in science" actually means. One study analyzed more than 250 scientific journal articles covering responsibility in research, the results of which were published in the first issue of JRI. Opinions range from one extreme that scientists should be left alone to do their work free of bias to the other extreme that research should be completely transparent and open to the public. 

Innovation Excellence has published Jonny Hankins' review of the inaugural issue of the Journal of Responsible Innovation. His review guides readers through the issue with a brief summary of and commentary on each article. 

Hankins provides a brief summary of and response to each article in the inaugural issue of the Journal of Responsible Innovation. 

The National Science Foundation recently announced a grant of nearly $500,000 to establish a new Virtual Institute for Responsible Innovation (VIRI) at the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at ASU (CNS-ASU).