The Future of Education

Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) with the key elements societal engagement, gender, ethics, open access and science education provides a framework for bringing research closer to the needs and values of society. The biosciences sector is hereby seen as a crossroad in the relations between science and society (https://www.resbios.eu). This paper sums up experiences regarding the implementation of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in universities and research institutions of the biosciences. It is based on two Horizon 2020 projects conducted from 2016 to 2023, namely Starbios2 (Structural Change to Implement Responsible Research and Innovation) and ResBios (Responsible Research in Biosciences). Both projects were coordinated by the University of Rome Tor Vergata. In ResBios, four European institutions have been selected for putting RRI into practice at institutional level: these are Ivan Franko University of Lviv, in Ukraine; Democritus University of Thrace in Greece, Marine Sciences Institute of the National Council of Scientific Research in Spain, and the University of Zagreb in Croatia. The goal of these four organizations was to implement a series of so-called “Grounding Actions” (GA) based on the key elements of RRI. They were supported by partners - so-called mentors - coming from research institutions in Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Poland and Bulgaria. All mentors participated in the former EU project StarBios2, which had a duration from 2016 and 2020, setting the scene for transformative practices in institutional change in regard to RRI (http://starbios2.eu).

University of Bremen (Germany) was responsible for supporting the implementation of GAs in the field of science education [1]. Therefore, a series of ten supportive mentoring meetings were planned, conducted and evaluated. Based on the qualitative analysis of the protocols of the mentoring meetings and reflective interviews with participants of four participating research institutions, a guideline about Science Education in regard to RRI has been developed. The guideline comprises information about “What good RRI lecturers do” and “Which educational measures are suitable to promote RRI”. It shows pathways how organizations implement educational RRI actions. The ideas and concepts could be of interest for an international audience working in the field of RRI [2].

Keywords: Science Education, Responsible Research and Innovation, European project, Biosciences

References:

[1] Elster, D. (2021). Starbios2- Engaging with Responsible Research through Science Education. Electronic Proceedings of the ESERA 2019 Conference. The beauty and pleasure of understanding: engaging with contemporary challenges through science education, Alma Mater Studorium University Bologna, Bologna.

[2] Elster, D.; Barendziak, T., Birkholz, J. (2020). Towards a Sustainable and Open Science. Recommendations for Enhancing Responsible Research and Innovation in the Biosciences at the University of Bremen, Shaker, Aachen.