A significant part of responsible innovation is engagement with diverse groups of stakeholders; this remains true for projects investigating responsible innovation practices. This chapter discusses strategies for engaging small and medium-sized enterprises in co-creating visions of and plans for implementing responsible innovation, drawing on the example of engagement with United Kingdom cyber security companies. The key aspect of the engagement was building trust between the responsible innovation researchers and the companies. Trust was built by a movement away from traditional recruitment (...) procedures for research projects, towards proactive engagement with the culture and traditions of the sector – participating in company sponsored talks and conferences, finding ways to communicate effectively, and ensuring a tailored message that fit the expectations and requirements of the sector. This chapter reviews the context in which the recruitment took place, the assumptions made prior to recruitment, the approaches taken, the revisions made to these approaches, and ultimately offers some general recommendations for industry engagement in responsible innovation activities. (shrink)

Purpose Digital contact tracing technologies are critical to the fight against COVID-19 in many countries including the UK. However, a number of ethical, legal and socio-economic concerns that can affect uptake of the app have been raised. The purpose of this research is to explore the perceptions of the UK digital contact tracing app in the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic community in Leicester and how this can affect its deployment and implementation. Design/methodology/approach Data was collected through virtual focus groups (...) in Leicester, UK. A total of 28 participants were recruited for the study. All participants are members of the BAME community, and data was thematically analysed with NVivo 11. Findings A majority of the participants were unwilling to download and use the app owing to legal and ethical concerns. A minority were willing to use the app based on the need to protect public health. There was a general understanding that lack of uptake will negatively affect the fight against COVID-19 in BAME communities and an acknowledgement of the need for the government to rebuild trust through transparency and development of regulatory safeguards to enhance privacy and prevent misuse. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the research makes original contributions being the first robust study conducted to explore perceptions of marginalised communities, particularly BAME which may be adversely impacted by the deployment of the app. By exploring community-based perceptions, this study further contributes to the emerging citizens’ perceptions on digital contact tracing which is crucial to the effectiveness and the development of an efficient, community-specific response to public attitudes towards the app. The findings can also help the development of responsible innovation approaches that balances the competing interests of digital health interventions with the needs and expectations of the BAME community in the UK. (shrink)

Purpose Many of the ethical issues of additive manufacturing are not well known or understood, and there remains a policy vacuum that needs to be addressed. This paper aims to describe an approach that has been applied successfully to other emerging technologies, referred to as the responsible research and innovation framework programme. A case is then made for the application of this approach in the AM industry with an illustration of how it might be used. Design/methodology/approach The research uses an (...) RRI approach referred to as AREA, an acronym for Anticipate, Reflect, Engage and Act, to assess the ethical implications of AM. For the anticipation phase, horizon scanning was done to explore the ethical issues of AM based on extant literature, while reflective analysis was carried out all through the work to reflect on the data being collected and the research process. The engage phase involved interviews with five participants from small- and medium-sized enterprises involved in 3D printing. Findings The findings indicate that although AM appears to pose a threat to intellectual property rights, many in the industry do not care about this issue. As AM becomes mainstream, intellectual property will likely become a big problem. Also, very little is known about the health impacts of AM. This study shows that AM can be hazardous. Research limitations/implications Only users at SME level were sampled. Other researchers might test the usefulness of AREA at the enterprise level. Practical implications The research demonstrates how the AREA framework may be useful in information systems and social science research by enabling a more anticipatory and reflective research process. Originality/value The paper responds to the need for a novel approach to identifying ethical issues of AM. (shrink)