D.1.2 - ORRI Guidelines

Open Responsible Research and Innovation (ORRI) is a process that considers the broader impacts of research and innovation, marking a paradigm shift in their conduct. Its goal is to ensure that the positive societal and economic benefits of research and innovation are fully realized, while minimizing unintended negative impacts. However, implementing ORRI often encounters significant challenges and barriers. Achieving the necessary shift in research and innovation systems is difficult, particularly when ORRI goals and principles appear to conflict with objectives deemed of higher value, importance, or urgency. Consequently, numerous resources and tools for ORRI have been developed over the past decade. Despite this progress, there remains a risk of gaps between ORRI conceptualization, operationalization, and actual implementation and institutionalization. This is perceived as challenging, as ORRI provides limited concrete instruction. The guidelines aim to bridge this gap by disseminating and translating ORRI concepts into easily understandable language, demystifying ORRI and enhancing its applicability. The REINFORCING ORRI guidelines offer innovative guidance to make ORRI initiatives iterative, resilient, adaptive, and aligned with evolving local, European, and global trends and challenges. They consolidate ORRI knowledge, making it easily accessible, up-to-date, and constantly adapted to community needs and advancements.
This deliverable includes key principles for institutional changes and selected examples of ‘practice' models based on the wide expertise, experiences and tools developed in a multitude of ORRI projects and initiatives. The REINFORCING ORRI guidelines thus represent the essence of years of research on ORRI but are tailored to the specific needs and settings of ORRI practitioners. To make sure the guidelines meet the needs of the target group, feedback will be solicited from the ORRI community. The Guidelines are organized as a living document, frequently revised and enriched with further practice examples based on feedback solicited from project grantees, the REINFORCING Advisory Board, the REINFORCING Global Network, and the ORRI community at large to ensure their understandability, user-friendliness, and actionability with needed adaptation to the specific context and setting. This approach aims to achieve REINFORCING's main goal: to provide meaningful support, services, and resources to as many ORRI enablers as possible to enhance ORRI mainstreaming.