Here are a few top of the head observations on how it resonates with our Responsible Innovation report and  ‘What the public wants to know about company use of innovative technologies – an analysis of 15+ public dialogues on emerging technologies.  (Take a look here at this Youtube video presentation on Prezi (you can turn the sound down if you don’t want to listen to me!) or an outline report here (Professional design underway!)

Responsible Innovation and Trust

Companies are good innovators of new products, services or ideas

The good news for companies is 46% think that is important, and 41 % think that they also deliver that.  This shows there is confidence in the ability of companies to innovate and to deliver against stakeholder expectations.  But then it gets more complicated…..

Trust is going to be increasingly based on societal engagement factors says Edelman.  It must be based on listening to customers, and responding to social or environmental needs.  There is a big gap between what customers feel is important in this area and company performance. (62% think it is the most important, but only 28% think companies do it well.)

Our work also indicates that without engaging with their stakeholders, and delivering relevant products, public confidence in innovation could be eroded.  Public and stakeholder expectations indicate time and again that innovative technologies should be used for social benefit and that the views of customers and other stakeholders are essential to developing products that deliver that.

Governments main job re business is to protect the public from irresponsible business practices

Stakeholders don’t feel that governments regulate business enough and that their most important role in relation to business is to protect consumers from irresponsible business practices. The drivers of such irresponsible behaviour are seen to be poor management, unethical business practices and shortcuts leading to poor quality.

This also resonates with our findings where we see the public not particularly trusting government to protect them from irresponsible business practice, and looking for independent oversight of companies (and actually governments) to give them confidence in the safety and effectiveness of new technologies.

Academics, technical experts and ‘a regular employee or a person like me’ are the most trusted

To me this indicates a need for credible, evidence based information and the need to cut through the corporate sales patter and get to what really matters.  This strongly resonates also with our top line finding

‘Be honest, be open and don’t duck the tricky issues’.   Nice to know we aren’t out of kilter with the world!

Practice Radical Transparency

‘Making the system more transparent’ is proposed by the Edelman research in relation to the financial sector, but is seen as equally applicable to business in general.  This was one of the more surprising findings of our work – that the public has a strong residual trust in the general safety of products, but wants to feel more confident that companies have robust systems in place to ensure they have thought through the potential for harm to people and the environment and have plans in place to put things right when (not if!) they do go wrong.

We rarely see this on company websites or in social reports.  It is our belief that the ‘radical transparency’ this report calls for will include the health, safety and environmental systems in place to ensure company products are safe and effective, particularly where innovative new technologies, such as biotech and nanotechnologies and synthetic biology, are used.

Our soon to be launched report ‘Building Confidence in Innovative Technologies – what stakeholders expect and how companies can respond’ will go into more detail about what different stakeholders expect and how companies can respond to increasing expectations on transparency about their use of innovative technologies.  Drop me an email at hilary@matterforall.org if you would like a copy or to be invited to our launch.

My presentation seemed to go down well. Following input from our stakeholder meeting earlier in the week I proposed that retailers had a pivotal role in oversight of new technologies for the following reasons:

• They are the link between products and the public
• Can act as a catalyst for good practice in others
• They need to insist on better quality information for customer safety
• ..and insist on better quality information for their own risk management
• Consider innovative responses to their own stretch targets on innovation, energy, waste etc

Those present seemed to agree that retailers had an unique position in the supply chain and that as gatekeepers on behalf of the consumer they had an important role as a catalyst for good practice.

They didn’t appear to shy away from this responsibility, however, in the discussion afterwards it was clear that there were some things getting in the way of them doing that as effectively as they might, particularly in nanotechnologies:

Nano, wot nano?

• Retailers have policies on nano, requesting companies using nanotechnologies to disclose that to them in advance.   But this rarely comes up, except with sunscreens, because they don’t see any products using nano brought to them.
• They don’t think there are many nano enhanced products they stock unknowingly, but cannot be sure.
• They don’t know where to go to find out if this is a matter of inadequate disclosure, or just that nano is not much used in consumer products at the moment.

How are they supposed to know?

I hear a lot that there are very few nano enhanced innovations in the consumer products area.  It seems logical that if this is an expensive technology, with the benefit needing to be clear in order to justify its use, that this would be part of the sales spiel from the manufacturer.  This is not happening.

A retailer known for its positive approach to innovation and rigorous approach to governance said to me in a meeting earlier in the week:

‘To be honest, we think there isn’t much nano out there, because if it was, someone would have tried to sell it to us. We just don’t see it and from what we know about nano, it looks more likely that it is not that it is being hidden, so much as not being used. People seem to be being precautionary in this area.’

What information can be given to retailers to help them make those judgements in the absence of legislation mandating disclosure?  Where can they go to get it?  I didn’t have an answer for them.

Responding to consumer concerns – no information either

The difficulties of obtaining information on risks was also seen as a problem.  ‘The public asks us some very unusual things and sometimes it is very hard to get information to respond to them properly. When we can find it, most of it seems to be in subscription only journals and often very difficult to translate for the public,’ explained one.

These retailers have thousands of products and thousands of ‘material issues’ of concern to different types of stakeholder.  They are not able to subscribe to all of the arcane journals pertaining to all of their products or the ingredients contained in them.

Clearly a central repository of information on nanotechnologies for example, freely accessible, would be useful to help them respond and engage effectively with their customers and other professional stakeholders?

There is, for example, the Nano Observatory, but they don’t seem to communicate well to people outside the immediate nano community.  These types of organisation should see communications as a central part of what they do, whereas the it seems to me the focus of such organisations is on data gathering, not getting the data out to the people who need it.

Anticipating negative impacts – nano silver exclusions?

Some of the retailers have specific exclusions – nano silver being the one mentioned at the meeting and in previous discussions with retailers.  Not for direct health and safety reasons, but because of concerns about anti-bacterial resistance.

How do they get quality information for valid exclusions on nano products like this? Often it is down to their own research, which naturally has to be limited given the number of issues and number of products they have to track.  Who can they trust to give them quality information which they can relay to the consumer?  I didn’t have much of an answer again.

If people are ‘not bothered’ what is their responsibility to communicate?

One of the retailers had done its own research to understand consumer views on nanotechnology, for their own purposes. (I’m trying to get a copy!) They found that the public wasn’t really that bothered about nano products at the moment, (much like most public research on the subject). Where does this lead them in terms of their own communication? If the products are not available, their customers are not interested, and there is limited information to make judgements about specific risks and opportunities, perhaps focusing on area where customers are clamouring for information looks like a much better use of their time and money?

Please don’t give us pointless products!

All the retailers I speak to appeal to manufacturers, ‘please don’t bring us pointless products using a technology for the sake of it, which doesn’t bring a benefit and where you clearly haven’t thought through the risks. But do use new technologies to solve some of the big problems we all face in a way which offers real benefits and is safe to use, we are desperate for those.’

Seems a sensible request to me!

So whilst I felt there was a willingness to get stuck in to the issues on nanotechnologies in consumer products, I was sympathetic to their concerns about lack of useful information.  I didn’t know where to send them myself.  Of course that’s what www.nanoandme.org was invented for, and which remains unfunded.  Which I did drop into the conversation!

If you would like a copy of the presentation I gave then do email me on hilary@matterforall.org.  Our report on Responsible Research and Innovation prepared at the request of the European Commission is also available on the front of our website or here

An interesting BBC Hard Talk programme explored this very well yesterday bbc.in/tWc7FH. Doesn’t seem to be any answers or even suggestions yet, but I am sure there are many.

So apologies to Profs MacNaghten & Owen for directing my ire (below) at them instead of the people/process which allowed SPICE to be commissioned the project in the first place without at least communicating more effectively about the governance, strategy and international context in which they made the decision.

Previous blog read:

I have just read the article in Nature from Prof Phil McNaghten and Prof Richard Owen which explains what went wrong with SPICE.  There is a paywall, so there is an article in the Guardian here

I am actually still pretty happy with the conclusions mentioned in my original post called ‘Views on Geoengineering Cock Up’  and which are not a million miles away from their conclusions, but would like to make a few comments on the learning from the project outlined in the paper.

I should say that I know that those involved are trying very hard to get this right and I bet are rather gutted about the reaction.  I am being a bit of a smart alec (moi?), and I know it is so much easier to criticise from the outside looking in, but it still feels to me rather predictable.  However, I don’t think anything would have stopped the reaction they got with a geoeng pilot, but they could have really done themselves a favour and got the basics right first, put them in the public domain so that at least we could all see that a credible process was in place.

The paper concludes:  Aspects of SPICE’s governance could have been improved. 

• The framework should have been in place before the project’s conception.

Err, yes!  This is what governance is.  This is a basic error of judgement.  It should have been in place.  It should have been launched to the world and clearly available and signposted from a number of obvious places, and, as I keep banging on about, posted on something like ‘Geoengineering&me’ which is an accessible place for us all to see what is going on and possibly contribute.

• The test date should not have been announced until the stage-gate criteria had been met; 

Ditto, it is hard to see how such a credible bunch could have been designing this process but not take any notice of itself.

• and the structures and resources to support the social research should have been in place earlier. 

Not quite sure what that means.  The issue here is not about getting more research or more consultation, but about process, governance, transparency.

• Even now, the decision on whether to proceed will not be easy. There are few right or wrong answers to the many questions about climate engineering.

Yes, you will always have a very vocal, very well organised opposition who can communicate, campaign and galvanise opinion much better than a bunch of scientists and social scientists can do. Wonder what they are going to do about that!?

• But it is vital that we make space to listen to and discuss these questions, and that the debate transparently influences the decisions that are taken.

Indeed!    The thing is, another dialogue isn’t going to tell you something you don’t know. So what will be the purpose of the next stage?

• For geoengineering technology to progress, its developers must be mindful of wider impacts from the outset; and it must proceed under robust governance mechanisms. The SPICE responsible-innovation framework is one evolving approach to achieving it.

Aren’t these two different things?   In my mind, to be credible, the Geoengineering Governance Project (or whatever it is eventually called) should develop an overarching governance framework, internationally agreed, which sets parameters for Geoeng research and development which different countries/universities, even companies (given Richard Branson’s ideas!) can follow to demonstrate compliance and rigorous ethical procedures.  Following agreement of that, and understanding the expectations of transparency and performance that dictates, the SPICE project is then refined and then, in all likelihood, undertaken.

More research on when and how we need it?

Though I am only on the fringes of this and it may all be happening, I see the need for more (or more publically accessible) research into what the thresholds might be on the various Planetary Boundaries, for example, which makes Geoeng then a necessity; what is happening to track that, what the likelihood of the aerosols doing any good and the potential repercussions, then we can see if they can be made to work or not.  I appreciate that the Royal Society report did that, but again, an international process as well.

The ones most effected must be included

It is likely it won’t be us who gets it, if we get climate change wrong or geoengineering wrong, developing nations, as usual, may suffer most from our great ideas.  What is the process for involving them in these decisions? What is the international body taking the lead on this?  I personally want to see these scientists and others busting a gut to make this happen as there appear to be many things happening in different countries, and there may well be an international effort which I don’t see and this group is connected with.

The Public Engagement Triangle

The Public Engagement Triangle. was a tool developed by Lindsey Colbourne for the UK Government’s Sciencewise Expert Resource Centre on public engagement.   It was designed to help people (particularly university researchers and government departments) explore their reasons for carrying out public engagement of any type.

Three broad but often overlapping purposes are defined (‘transmit’, ‘collaborate’, ‘receive’) and the emphasis of any planned activity towards these purposes is located on a 2-dimensional triangle. It was create to help people to, for example:

• plan, design and draw out objectives for communication and public engagement activities
• form a strategy: match the type of public engagement technique to the identified needs and help in considering what range of techniques are available
• evaluate an activity against its objective

This is a useful tool and has been widely used in planning public engagements in the research area.

As part of our ‘Walking with Stakeholders’ project, MATTER was seeking to engage companies in undertaking their own engagement as part of our focus on Responsible Research and Innovation and alongside the new AA1000SES Stakeholder Engagement Standard (more of which another day) we considered how to use the Public Engagement Triangle within that context.

The missing link – Cogitation

However, we felt that one crucial piece of the tool (of both initiatives actually) was missing, or could be emphasised more clearly in the model – the internal deliberation and strategic response to the interaction with stakeholders – what we have called Cogitation.   Stakeholder engagement of any type is superficial and potentially a waste of stakeholder time and company money unless it stimulates reflection and responsiveness from the organisation involved and we felt that this needed to be emphasised more clearly. So we have suggested  adapting the model to include that more inclusive loop of engagement and reflection in the adapted model below

Why Cogitate?

We chose to use the word ‘cogitate’ over the more widely used ‘reflect’, (or think, ponder, ingest, consider which were also suggested by kind followers on twitter) because reflection feels a bit passive, academic, airy-fairy, impractical; it summons images of being on your own, looking out of the window thinking big thoughts.  Cogitate seemed to us to have a clunkier feel, more practical, indicating difficulty, intractability, rigorous thought processes – more suited to the complexities of responding effectively to the perceptions, needs and desires, often conflicting, of a company’s different stakeholders. We also use stakeholders rather than public as companies use the word ‘stakeholder’ more readily than public, to mean all those who influence or are influenced by its operations. The public, and public engagement, is seen as a subset of that.

Stimulating focus on purpose

We also  feel that this emphasis on cogitation and the loop rather than the triangle focuses attention more firmly on the development of the purpose of the engagement as well as the essential responsiveness and feedback required.  There is more work to be done to explore how the feedback aspect can be reflected in the drawing more powerfully. 

Our Walking with Stakeholders project launched later this month will explore in detail how companies can engage with their stakeholders at different points in technology innovation pathways and how this can be structured department by department and stakeholder by stakeholder according to the structure of the stakeholder engagement loop.

The false hierarchy

There is a general sense in some debates about the triangle, that ‘Transmit’ is PR and therefore inferior.  ‘Receive’ is OK but is really a step on the pathway to nirvana which is ‘Collaborate’.  However all of these can be equally useless if used as a box ticking exercise and equally valuable if used at the right time for the right purpose.   

However, Transmit, or for us Communicate, is the place where transparency sits and this is hugely important and can, in fact, be more challenging for companies than any of the others.  It involves potentially disclosing things they would rather not talk about and think is none of our business.  But it is also how they demonstrate their accountability to stakeholders.  This is the real bone of contention which our Walking with Stakeholders project seeks to explore and come to some form of agreement on.

Examples of stakeholder engagement from the loop

The basis of this thinking is our project which evaluated ‘What the public expects from companies about the use of new technologies’ and our recent event with investors where they asked for more information (blog here) plus 30 years stakeholder engagement experience of various types.  The Public Engagement Triangle document also has useful explanations too, thought these are focused on companies.

Communicate

Companies are allowed to do PR and marketing.  They are allowed to show off their products, communicate about what they do and try and persuade us to buy them.  It’s what gives us choices, pays all our bills, pays taxes and pays for much of our public services.  (Of course, not when it is misleading, has false or inflated claims, inappropriately targeted etc and I’m not going into conspicuous consumption here!)

However, where this really comes into its own for our purposes is where companies are more transparent about their approach to new technologies; the making of their products, the systems in place to demonstrate safety to different stakeholders at different times. For example:

• Openness about their use of new or controversial technologies.  Why they chose to use that technology over another, the benefits it brings over existing technologies, issues around its use which customers may wish to or need to know (eg side effects, uncertainties, safe-use, disposal issues etc).

Via websites, training, packaging, B-2-B comms, media relations or advertising etc

• Illustrating their approach or response to any uncertainties and evolving social or ethical issues which may (or may not) arise from its use.  (eg response to societal concerns about safety, ethical debates etc.

Via media relations, appearance at conferences, events etc.

• Feedback activities, including the findings of Receive or Co-Create activities and how the company has responded and any changes it has made.

Via websites, social & annual reporting mechanisms, meetings with professional stakeholders

• Informing clients of business to business companies on their approach to material/product development, safety testing and data, stakeholder engagement, traceability.

Via richer safety data sheets, personal meetings, training, trade media relations, conferences 

• Training workers or customers’ workers or even suppliers, in safe handling and use of new materials or products.

Via training programmes, standards and guidelines, internal conferences, websites etc. 

• Sharing toxicology, HSE, clinical trials data etc to add to the body of evidence about safety and reassure customers, inform suppliers, policy makers and others

Via open source directories, websites, direct information sharing with government, customers, regulators and even competitors and other businesses through meetings, conferences etc

• Reporting progress against goals in this area aligned to business strategy. Focus on the the performance of the company, how it understands and discharges its responsibilities in the area of Responsible Research and Innovation, part of that behaviour will be its engagement, but most will be about the systems and processes it has in place to ensure appropriate, safe and effective products using new technologies.

Via social & annual reporting mechanisms, contribution to standards bodies etc

Listen 

Listening in this context may include traditional market research in format, eg focus groups, but may be used at different times, for different reasons and may use more innovative approaches.  It is likely that good practice companies will consider more innovative approaches to listen to and understand external views.  For example:

• Consultation to understand the views and perceptions of the public or other stakeholders to inform their approach (eg usage, new issues, concerns, perceptions, uncertainties, new contributions to understanding on risk and benefit, social or ethical issues)

Via meetings, conferences, stakeholder fora, focus groups, surveys, citizen’s juries, public meetings, on-line fora, polling or engagement projects, polls and market research. 

• Data mining – researching and using new systems to understand views of key stakeholders and uncover subtle shifts in scientific evidence, perceptions, new issues and information

Via  academic sources, social science research, twitter, social network, media data mining 

 Co-create 

To worth together with stakeholders – perhaps civil society organisations, ngos, customers, or members of the public or customer base to develop a way forward on an issue, a product or process in which mutual learning takes place and which is of significant value to all parties concerned.  As David Santillo of Greenpeace says in his response to our Responsible Research & Innovation report here genuine open source innovation is different from designing surf boards with customers or focus groups to consider how to adapt a product.  But co-creation indicates a level of embedness of the issues and concerns which takes it beyond dialogue. With co-creation, the project is created and delivered in partnership with stakeholders, in a more collaborative mode than even with a two-way listen and respond mechanism.  

This approach is not suited to all types of project, but can be highly effective in, for example:

• Embedding responsiveness to key issues into product design at source and considering how best that can be done.
• Generating new thinking and developing new customer/stakeholder-led approaches to products, systems or services
• Delivering new products and ways forward where mutual consensus is necessary and where a deep resonance with stakeholder perspectives is important for both parties, not just the company concerned.

Via personal interactions with a limited group of stakeholders. Usually through brainstorms, meetings and on-line interactions where feedback is ongoing and collaborative from both parties.

Cogitate

If there were to be a hierarchy, this may be the best candidate for the top slot.  The inter-departmental and cross-departmental internal debates and discussions are the whole point of the external relationship and knowledge development modes.  Cogitation is effective in considering the appropriate approach to a research or product development, developing a strategy and action plan on a complex or controversial issue, or an effective or innovative response to changing evidence or expectations.

It is essential to making effective and responsible use of the information gained from listening and co-creation initiatives and developing an effective and open communications strategy.  Dialogue data which sits on someone’s desk while the rest of the organisation goes on with business as usual is irresponsible engagement and a waste of company and stakeholder time and money.

Aligning this new knowledge with the vision, values and corporate strategy for the organisation can be hugely valuable to individual teams or departments and the company as a whole.  It is essential to the demonstration of Responsible Innovation.  This may include, for example:

• Cross-departmental brainstorms, discussions and debates where key issues intersect different areas.  This happens rarely and the responsible innovation agenda is a great place to start.
• Inter-departmental discussions in response to internal and external feedback
• Collaborative strategy or product development – where the perspectives of different departments and stakeholder views provide a richer source of information from which to design processes and products.

Via meetings, collaborative web interactions, facilitated off-site brainstorms etc

We hope to be able to illustrate some good examples of each of these in our report.  If you have any, please do link to them in a comment or send them to hilary@matterforall.org.

Please feel free to criticise, contribute and elaborate on this thinking here or by email

We also invited David Santillo from Greenpeace to speak to the group.  David is a senior scientist at the Greenpeace Laboratories based at the University of Exeter, and is their lead on matters of emerging technologies.  He reviewed the recent paper that I had written for the European Commission on Responsible Research and Innovation (available here and here on EC site) and responded to it specifically.  He explained that the report was a very good summary of the issues, but had some concerns as outlined below.   It helps to read the paper first but is not at all essential.

10 THOUGHTS ON RESPONSIBLE RESEARCH AND INNOVATION

David Santillo, Greenpeace

1    Do not assume that technology innovation is the inevitable solution

While innovation may often be becoming complex, disruptive and global in nature, this is not always the case, or at least needn’t be.  It is vital not to assume that the best or necessary innovations are inevitably highly technical in nature.  Systemic, low tech or other changes must be considered alongside, as equal, to those potentially more disruptive or uncertain technological solutions.

2    Prioritise consideration of irreversible impacts

Public understanding of the concept of risk is perhaps greater than is generally acknowledged, and the risks often of greatest concern are those involving potentially irreversible impacts.  How are governments, companies and scientists considering the potential impact of these new technologies in the round and in particular the likelihood of irreversible impacts on humans or the environment?

3    Consultation without feedback sustains mistrust.

If public engagement is seen primarily as a strategy to build knowledge and confidence in a new technology, in order to ‘smooth the innovation pathway’, this is unlikely to build broad public acceptance and trust.  Engagement must be entered into with a genuine interest in hearing public views and, as far as possible, resolving legitimate concerns.  Consultation without feedback sustains mistrust.  Some level of distrust will always persist, but the best response is always to be honest and transparent about how decisions have been made and on what assumptions they are based.

4    Mandatory measures, such as reporting, may be beneficial not destabilising

Over-reliance (whether perceived or actual) on voluntary reporting and compliance schemes also contributes to lack of public confidence.  Mandatory reporting for, for example, use of nanomaterials in consumer goods may ultimately be beneficial to manufacturers and retailers as well as to the public.

5    Innovation must be for the good of society, not just for the economy and commercial gain

There remains an urgent need for the development of a more healthy relationship between governments and citizens.  Exploring existing language, such as that enshrined in the European Treaty, for elements of such a contract would be a welcome start.  Citizens must be able to feel confident that their governments are supporting innovation for the good of society and environment rather than primarily for economic gain to the advantage of major corporations.

6    Don’t confuse customer focus groups with open source  innovation

Corporate engagement with consumers in order to understand perceptions of products and to design future products which are sympathetic to consumer demand is certainly laudable, but should not be conflated with open source models of innovation and development as the motivations and spread of benefits are ultimately different.

7    A richer understanding of expertise needed

Confusion in public understanding of the costs and benefits of specific innovations may be exacerbated by disagreement between ‘experts’, as science has so often been presented as definitive and absolute.  Overuse of the term ‘expert’ may in itself be part of the problem.  Deliberations and consultations must be able to acknowledge and take account of dissenting and minority views.

8    Education in critical thinking essential from a young age

In efforts to equip the public with the ability to make critical and informed evaluations and judgments regarding research and innovation, education in science, technology, engineering, maths and critical thinking is key, starting at early primary level.

9   An evidence-based approach to precaution

Precaution must be seen as a science-based approach to decision-making, not an arbitrary one driven primarily by fear and opposition to innovation.  Precaution recognises the central importance of scientific enquiry, evidence and inference in evaluating research and innovation but does so with greater humility and acknowledgment for uncertainties, indeterminacies and unknowns.

10    Global governance regimes are possible and essential

In relation to proposed research and innovations involving open field testing or application, the prior establishment of transparent and effective governance regimes is vital.  Where such activities are proposed to take place in locations and at a scale at which transboundary impacts are possible (e.g. geoengineering research), such governance regimes must be global in nature.  Although this may seem an unachievable ideal, there are already precedents for rapid (2-3 year) development of such governance mechanisms in relation to ocean fertilisation with the London Protocol and its recent updates

Sacha Sadan, Director of Corporate Governance at Legal & General Investment Management, who hosted the meeting, explained “We perceive a critical lack of ambition in long term R&D and also a fear of talking about their ground-breaking research from major companies – in terms of opportunity or risk. Investors need to ask more of companies about the long term technological changes that could effect them and what they are doing to combat/embrace these changes. We should hope that companies respond with a more open and strategic approach.”

The meeting highlighted the following areas:

Companies don’t communicate well about innovation...
The unanimous view among the 20+ investors and rating agencies attending was that companies were very poor at communicating about their technology innovation with their investors. The focus on short term results and nervousness about speaking about their future activities, particularly, though not exclusively involving new technologies, means that investors fail to get the strategic overview they want, particularly from the large companies. “I think they are scared to talk about it, because they are worried we will react badly,” explained one. “But it could provide the key to some of the future value for the company, so we really want to know how these technologies can help them.”

…Nor about how the are managing risk
In addition they were unable to guauge the risks the companies were taking in this area, as again companies failed to communicate about the systems of oversight they had in place to manage and mitigate these risks. Another suggested “They all probably have it under control, but we don’t know what they are doing, so can’t factor either confidence or risk into our analysis.”

But investors also don’t know the questions to ask
The narrow focus of Investor Relations departments was seen as a particular barrier to this type of communication, though the investors themselves admitted that they also didn’t really know what questions to ask to enrich their analysis.

Lack of ambition is a real concern
However a focus on incremental improvements and lack of ambition about innovation may be the biggest problem holding companies back in terms of their own innovation and growth.

This poverty of aspiration may also be limiting progress on finding solutions to some of the most pressing problems we all face. These investors want to see companies being more ambitious, more innovative and unafraid to communicate about what they are doing.

Investors should share some of the blame!
However, MATTER also pointed out that investor attitudes to risk, focus on short term results and unwillingness to provide the enough of the ‘right’ type of funding for companies involved in new technologies have made a significant contribution to this problem!

Next Steps – a business/investor group exploring questions and answers?
The group wanted to take steps to rectify this problem and MATTER proposed a collaborative group of investors and businesses be convened to explore together what questions to ask and how companies and investors can work better together. This was very warmly received.

This fits very well with our “Walking with Stakeholders” theme which is currently exploring ‘What’s fair to share’ from the angle of the general public, this project could explore ‘What’s fair to ask and fair to share with investors”.

So that’s our job cut out for the Autumn! We would be very interested to your views and responses to this concept and the views of investors outlined here. In addition if you are a company or an investor and would be interested in joining this collaborative group, then email Hilary on hilary@matterforall.org or call us on 0207 520 9086

Responsible Innovation for Investors – programme

03:00   Registration
03:10   Welcome by Catalina Secreteanu (UKSIF)
03:15   Sacha Sadan welcome from Legal & General
03:20   Stephanie LeNguyen, Sustainalytics – Nanotechnologies overview
03:40   Hilary Sutcliffe, MATTER, About Responsible Innovation
04.00   David Santillo, Greenpeace – Ten key points on Responsible Innovation (David is preparing a blog on his presentation to be posted on MATTER website shortly)
04:15   Q&A and discussion, chaired by Sacha Sadan
05:00   Event Ends.

To do this, we will need to find and respond to the early warning signals much earlier. One of the ways we will do that is to understand, involve, listen and respond to views from individuals and groups in different parts of society. But how do we tell the nutters from those giving us credible early warnings?  Here’s a few reasons why I think it’s hard, perhaps even unrealistic:

1     Changing our ways because of the views of nutters.

In order to listen to society, we have to consider, and potentially respond by changing our behaviour, to people who’s opinions we think perhaps think are irrelevant, we don’t respect or agree with. Who in fact we think are nutters. These are sometimes scientists and social scientists in institutes which don’t conform; but may also be activists, campaigners, consumer groups, consultants, journalists, bloggers or members of the public. This is going to be particularly true where social or ethical factors come in.

Public dialogues indicate that many of these organisations are respected because of their contrary opinions. Many of us actively want people who go against the grain of opinion for the very reason that they don’t get sucked in to the herd mentality and can take a dispassionate view.

However, it is one step to acknowledge they might have a point and another again to consider behaviour change based on someone who’s opinion you don’t respect. Is it really going to happen?

The big question: When are nutters just nutters, and when are they prescient of important shifts which we need to know about and act on or have important knowledge we have overlooked? How do we tell?

2     The thankless world of Cassandras

History is littered with people who were highlighting potential problems, and getting ignored or worse, vilified, to be proved right in the end. Many in the environmental movement feel they were (are still!) banging their heads against a brick wall about climate change until very recently. The further away they their opinions are from the prevailing wisdom, the more barking mad these people look.

The big question: How do we get over our personal dislike of certain perspectives and really listen to what is being said and consider dispassionately if they are right and we are wrong? What tools do we need to assess these opinions differently than we did in the past?

3   Will our attitude to outliers cost us dearly?

What lessons can we draw conversely from other individuals or groups, who’s views resonated with public perceptions, were listened to, but end up being wrong, such as Dr Andrew Wakefield on MMR?

I know next to nothing about this issue, but as a lay person it appears to me that on the one hand, he raised not unreasonable concerns, but the way he was treated by the scientific establishment and the media would put anyone off rocking the boat in such a way again. Is this a problem?

Yes it appears his research was flawed and over-inflated, but if you stick your head above the parapet against a prevailing wisdom, and it is chopped off and paraded on a spike, might it put you and others off from doing it again, to our collective detriment?

The big question: How do we encourage, indeed reward, challenge to the system in a way which doesn’t destabilise it, undermining our ability to respond decisively? How do we value and evaluate contrary views, even if, in fact, they resonate with the way we think the world is, but are wrong? How do we value those people who do that without accepting sub-standard evidence?

4   Rationality trumps emotion every time

Scientists, policy makers and probably many of us, find it easier to respond constructively to language which is rational, logical, evidence-based. But sometimes, particularly with some of the more complex social or ethical issues (eg privacy, robotics, human enhancement), the debate is emotive, it is about the way we feel. It often isn’t easy to make policy or business decisions based on emotion, even though while we think we are acting ‘rationally’ often how we react is based on our emotional response.

The big question: How do we consider and evaluate perceptions and views based on emotions as equal to those based on facts?

5   Are the tools for the job up to it?

Foresight models, scenarios, technology assessments all aim to consider many of these issues, encourage the participation of wider society and give useful data to those making the decisions. I have no idea if they are up to it, and if in fact they are listened to, but my hunch is that sometimes they are and sometimes they aren’t.

We would be most interested in further research to look at such tools in the light of this need to stimulate the participation of wider groups and perspectives and most importantly listen and respond to their views. Email me on hilary@matterforall.org if you would like to join in or even better, fund such an initiative!

I have been on the fringes of some of the Geoengineering work – attended various Royal Society and POST events since 2009, read the public dialogue project and various reports with interest, track a few Geoeng people on twitter, that sort of thing.

So, I was surprised to see the SPICE (Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering) Geoengineering feasibility study announced as going ahead in September, starting October, and thought I must have missed quite alot of the underpinning work.  This was not someone practicing a bit of actual Geoeng, but seeing what happened if you sprayed some water from a hose suspended 1km in their air from a hot air balloon, with the idea that it may be useful to inject particles of something or other at 20km to reflect the suns rays back for climate cooling purposes.

The ensuing backlash from a number of groups, including ‘Hands of Mother Earth’ (HOME) group (‘a global campaign to defend our one precious home, planet earth, against the threat of geoengineering experiments’) seems entirely predictable and in many ways, not that unreasonable.

My initial ‘top of the head’ reaction is that this is a cock up and some of the reasons may be as follows:

Business as usual?
Whilst I understand that this is will not be in any way harmful, it does demonstrate a ‘business as usual’ attitude to the research on Geoeng which is at odds with the caution expressed by the Royal Society and agreed to at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) last year. Geoeng is a special case and needs special treatment.

It does look divisive
The Hands of Mother Earth project suggests that it is unacceptable to chair panels at the CBD whilst simultaneously planning tests for geoeng interventions,though the CBD does allow for small scale tests. (The row is also about if this is in fact one of those.) Let’s say it is ‘allowed’, none of this nuance appears to have been communicated by the NERC group or the scientists involved which seems to me to be inadvisable.

What about the Governance framework?
It has been widely agreed that some sort of international agreement should be in place regarding Geoengineering – shouldn’t this have waited at least to have some sort of draft framework to reflect in the design and communication of the project? Or failing that at least have a clear demonstration as part of the announcement that something such as the Oxford Principles for Geoeng was being followed (though they are dreadfully bland, woolly and signify nothing in my opinion from first glance!) Or failing that something about their system of oversight and things they have considered? The announcement, website and previous announcements should have set this out more clearly. Maybe I have missed something.

Where is their response to their multi-disciplinary panel?
It is clear that they have considered this, in that they have a multi-disciplinary panel of experts to advise them, though this is a UK only group, which also seems particularly narrow. I think this group may be the Integrated Assessment of Geoengineering Proposals , though not sure. This appears to be a sensible group with good people involved. But the framing of it, ie assessing the research proposals, indicates a green light and it is just a matter of seeing what works best. This is perhaps unfair, but certainly could be interpreted as that by the uninitiated.

But it isn’t clear what the findings and advice of this panel (which includes FOE) is in this regard and the publications are pretty much unfathomable to the likes of me and there is nothing which summarises their thinking or what they had to say about this test. It may be somewhere, but I can’t find it after a ten mins of google searches, which says something again about the comms if not the strategy itself.

What did the public say?
They have also done some public engagement about the test itself, which is of course a ‘good thing’. But where is the announcement of what the public said about the idea of the test and how it influenced their design of the test? Did they give feedback to the public they asked as to what they were going to do, how their input had influenced the work, or not, and what other influences they had taken into consideration. What questions did they ask, who did the work, what were the findings?

What about www.geoengineering&me.org!?
It is not beyond the wit of the UK government to at least have a publicly accessible Geoengineering website where it explains itself, why it thinks it might need to be done, what it is doing, what the rest of the world is doing. I would link to the HOME, CBD project and others. A bit like our www.nanoandme.org. This is a big deal and the public needs to be kept informed.

Where is the government’s multi-stakeholder panel?

Though the work of the Royal Society has been admirable, it is still scientists saying actually we may need geoengineering.  It may be unfair to say ‘To a hammer, everything looks like a nail.’ as their report is very good, but the government should have it’s own multi-disciplinary panel to consider these issues over and above the work of the RS, NERC, IAGP. This should feed in the international work going on and consider all of this work in an international context.

The stage-gate process of reflection and action?

The Responsible Innovation work being undertaken by the EPSRC with Professor Richard Owen at Univ Exeter and our own work proposes a stage gate approach to the introduction of new technologies. I can see that this small test is part of that stage gate, but this needs to be much more explicit, as to where this fits on trajectory of development, what has gone before and may or may not come afterwards. There is nothing about that in the launch announcements or any report I can see.

The ‘isn’t this exciting’ announcement – a mistake
The test appeared to be announced in a sort ‘here’s some great new science, isn’t it exciting’ sort of way at the Bradford Science Festival. There had to be a better way.

Get better at communicating – fast!

The Hands off Mother Earth campaign is rather brilliant, simple, clear, compelling, all the tricks of the trade.  I am glad they are there, though they are sometimes a bit ranty for me.  However, the communications is great.  But it sits in a vacuum of communication from the ‘other side’.  For the public, other stakeholders and people like me who may be wanting to know what others think but can’t find anything sensible except a boring thing in wikipedia.  Get with it people or the issues will be polarised and the ‘battle’ for public opinion won before you know what’s hit you!

Now what?
The test is postponed for what I understand is ‘more consultation’!  Consulting who, about what, for what purpose, with what aim?  Oh dear here we go again!

FYI – My views on Geoengineering
Finally, I better say that I am certainly not pro geoeng, it could easily be a distraction from doing the hard stuff, a quick fix and a potentially catastrophically bad idea.

However, I consider that we may have really messed up this time and might need all the help we can get, including scary technologies, so some sort of understanding of what may or may not work may be valuable.

On the other hand again, I really can’t see how we will have enough information to understand the potential effects of any Geoeng interventions to give them the green light at any stage given our past history of good intentions which turn bad.

Obviously what is considered responsible and irresponsible may be different in different countries and for different individuals – what is a useful product for one person may seem like a waste of resources to another. The trade-offs which often have to be made to deliver a solution can be seen as necessary by one and irresponsible by another. Also questions of intent, the state of current knowledge, who’s definition of risk and of benefit prevails and many other complex issues arise in defining what is responsible and not. It is the multiplicity of opinions, views and values which makes RRI so complex, intransigent and important.

Examples of Irresponsible Innovation
An informal request for examples of ‘irresponsible innovation’ through twitter, and my networks in corporate responsibility, science and communication elicited the examples below. Those who responded were mainly involved in civil society organisations or consultancies involved in corporate responsibility. Examples they gave were:

• Biofuels
• Palm oil
• Fracking (extracting gas from shale rock)
• GM
• Disposable/unmendable electronics or consumer goods
• Carbon offsets
• DDT
• CFCs/HCFCs
• Financial Derivatives
• Sub-prime mortgages
• High-frequency trading

It is interesting to note that these are all commercial products, not research and that most were produced specifically to have a significant beneficial social or environmental impact, but subsequently failed for various reasons. The reasons may have been:

• The potential wider social, ethical, environmental or commercial impacts had not been considered and prevented
• The benefit, either financial or social, was prioritise over other social, ethical or environmental issues
• The negative impacts were not known, (or knowable?) until the product was in use.

Possible components of Irresponsible Innovation?
With these examples in mind, there seems to be two fundamental components to irresponsible research or innovation:

• Where the processes and products of research and innovation harm human, animal (?) or environmental health and well being or in some way damaged the ability of a society to function effectively for the benefit of its citizens.
• In particular where this has been done deliberately for individual or institutional gain (usually financial, but also reputational) at the expensive of the health and the well being of others or the environment.

Again irresponsibility is in the eye of the beholder.

Most of these have also had positive impacts for certain constituencies, but certain aspects of have not seemed to some worth the ‘trade off’, or impacts have not been judged effectively in advance.

It is all about trade offs

The whole dialogue about responsibility and irresponsibility appears to be about trade offs.  There will be negatives, there will be positives.  How will we get the information we need to judge and who says and who’s opinion counts most?  It does appear there a real need for more research/debate/data about benefits in the round, about risks and potential impacts and their context within other available alternatives.  This ‘technology assessment’ will help us understand these complex issues better in advance.  The trick is to ensure that this responsible aspect of innovation does act as a barrier to the innovation itself.  There’s no responsible innovation without innovation.

Anyone any cash for further action research?

I think it would be productive to develop this research on ‘irresponsible innovation’ further on a consultative, action research basis, which unfortunately I can’t do without funding.  If anyone has anything on this topic is is interested in finding out more in partnership mode, do drop me a line on hilary@matterforall.org

Please feel free to respond to this idea of what Responsible Research and Innovation encompasses.  This is slightly amended from the original I posted a few hours ago!

What does Responsible Research & Innovation encompass?

The term is new and the dimensions and distinctions are evolving.  Current debates suggest that RRI (Responsible Research and Innovation) encompasses the following:

1. The focus of research and the products of innovation achieve a social or environmental benefit
2. Involving and being responsive to the views of ‘society’, including the public and non-governmental groups, who are themselves mindful of the public good.
3. Finding ways to assess and prioritise social, ethical and environmental issues, risks and opportunities, both now and in the future, alongside the current focus on the technical and commercial.
4. In which oversight mechanisms are created to adapt and respond to changing knowledge and circumstances
5. Where transparency, accountability and liability are considered in advance and are fairly applied

A Definition of RRI?

There is no clear definition, though some academics and groups are exploring the possibilities.  The definition below has been articulated  as a starting point for discussion:

“Responsible Research and Innovation is a transparent, interactive process by which

societal actors and innovators become mutually responsive to each other with a view to the

(ethical) acceptability, sustainability and societal desirability of the innovation process and its

marketable products( in order to allow a proper embedding of scientific and technological

advances in our society).”

(Von Schomberg (2011) ‘ Prospects for Technology Assessment in a framework of responsible research and innovation ‘ in: M. Dusseldorp and R. Beecroft (eds). Technikfolgen abschätzen lehren: Bildungspotenziale transdisziplinärer Methoden,Wiesbaden: Vs Verlag, in print)

What areas does it cover?

The debate is currently centred on science-based research and innovation, in particular on emerging technologies – notably nanotechnologies, genomics, synthetic biology and geoengineering.  However, the use of the word ‘innovation’ is commonly used to describe any type of invention which significantly improves products, systems or services.  Responsible Research and Innovation could therefore also encompass, for example, financial instruments, ICT, public policy or community innovations, distribution, service or system innovations, which usually develop separately from the university-led research pathway followed by science and technology.

In addition other communities of interest – for example the corporate responsibility community, sustainable development, human rights or consumer groups are also articulating their aspirations for the responsible development of products and services to along similar lines.

If the term Responsible Research and Innovation is to become more widely used, and its ‘principles’ influential, the broader use of the term innovation may be more useful, not least because system or service innovations can sometimes be as important in providing solutions to pressing social and environmental problems as technological ones.  It is therefore important that the concepts and language used are chosen to encompass any area of innovation, and that engagement, reflection and action is significantly expanded from the current focus on the university research community.   This will entail innovation in reaching and involving those groups, particularly business and the public, who are more difficult to engage.

However, if it is intended that the focus be science and technology innovation alone, this may be useful to reflect in the definition.