Territorial Responsible Research and Innovation and Smart Specialization

Territories and regions have become during the last decades increasingly important sources of economic and innovation activity. Concurrently, environmental and social concerns have become increasingly important and there has been expanding discussion on the responsibility aspects of research and innovation especially on the European level. The project aims to implement RRI in the territorial level. For this end, various European regions are participating in the project. The regions are from different parts of Europe giving an opportunity to make visible and compare different politico-economic contexts and their effects on the implementation of RRI. The project will: a) Map and analyze the territorial systems to understand what is the current role of RRI, and what are the drivers and barriers for a RRI related transition; b) Co-create with the stakeholders mechanisms and supporting elements for the increasing implementation of RRI; c) Support the organization of the pilots in the implementation of RRI; d) Organize opportunities for territorial actors to learn and have peer support from other regions internationally; and e) Support dialogue between different levels of governance of research and innovation on RRI. As conceptual and theoretical frameworks to understand the functioning of the regional system and to support change in the system, the project will utilize innovation systems related theories together with theories of systemic and organizational change.