European project HEIRRI: RRI in higher education

Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) will lead the European project HEIRRI: Higher Education Institutions & Responsible Research and Innovation, which aims to integrate the concept of “Responsible Research and Innovation”, or RRI, in the science and engineering degrees, mainly focusing in universities and other higher education institutions (HEI). The HEIRRI project starts on September 1^st and will last three years, and has an approximate budget of one and a half million Euros.

The concept of “Responsible Research and Innovation”, or RRI, implies the alignment of R+D+i, in all its phases, with the needs, values and expectations of society. The European Commission is very actively fostering the knowledge and practical implementation of RRI, focusing its actions on 6 key axes: public engagement; science ethics; science education; gender equality; open access; and science governance.

Gema Revuelta, director of the Studies Centre on Science, Communication and Society (SCS-UPF), from the Department of Experimental and Health Sciences (DCEXS-UPF), will be the main coordinator of the project, and Núria Saladié, member of the same group, will be its project manager. The multidisciplinary team that will participate in this project, from UPF, is composed also of Jordi Pérez Sánchez, Mar Carrió, and Fèlix Bosch (members of the Health Sciences Educational Research Group, from DCEX-UPF), Vladimir de Semir, Chairman of the Social and Advisory Boards of SCS-UPF, and Davinia Hernàndez-Leo,  professor at the Department of Information and Communication Technologies (DTIC-UPF).

The rest of the HEIRRI consortium is composed of the Aarhus University (Denmark), the University of Bergen (Norway), the University of Split (Croatia), the Institute for Advanced Studies (Austria), the “la Caixa” Foundation  (Barcelona, Spain), the company Innovatec (Madrid, Spain), the European network of science centres and museums ECSITE (with more than 400 institutions from 50 countries) and ACUP, the Catalan Association of Public Universities, which chairs GUNi, the Global University Network for Innovation (208 universities from 78 countries).

The HEIRRI project is one of the first initiatives that Horizon2020 sets in motion in order to integrate RRI in the university education. Its aim is to ensure that future science and engineering professionals (and from other related fields) incorporate RRI in their activity.

The project will develop a strategic plan with the following actions for its 36 months of duration:

• State of the Art analysis and detection of practical cases and best practice examples.
• Design of teaching programmes at different university levels (undergraduate, postgraduate, phD, summer courses and MOOC).
• Elaboration of training material with the following characteristics: multimedia, created through collaborative platforms, focused on the PBL system (Problem-based Learning) and publicly available in open access.
• Implementation of the materials and courses in 10 pilot experiences in Europe (3 of which will be done in collaboration between a university and a science museum of the same city).
• HEIRRI Forum: actions to encourage the debate on the need to integrate RRI and to advance towards the change that it implies. The Forum includes two international conferences (offline) and an online actions programme.
• Actions for the internationalization of the project and the elaborated material (international university meetings, fellowships, etc).
• Communication and evaluation actions

This project is funded by Horizon2020 research and innovation from the European Union under Project reference  no. 666 004


Este blog cuenta con la colaboración de la Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología – Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación