Towards responsible standardisation: investigating the importance of responsible innovation for standards development

Abstract

Responsible Innovation has recently been taken up in public policies and discourses. However, it remains challenging to institutionalise its core dimensions -inclusion, anticipation, responsiveness, reflexivity, and transparency -in practice. De jure standardisation is increasingly seen as an instrument to embed the core principles of Responsible Innovation in innovation processes, because of its anticipatory and inclusive nature. Yet, Responsible Innovation within the standardisation literature is an under-researched field of study. This paper explores and evaluates the relative importance of Responsible Innovation's core dimensions in the standards development process. We identify eighteen criteria that are deemed essential to the quality of standardisation processes. The Best-Worst Method was used to rank these criteria on their perceived importance. Diversity of participation was found to be the most important contributing factor to the quality of standardisation.

Scaling of social initiatives: the role of entrepreneurial skills and positions

“…The social sector involves human behaviour, which is less objectively measurable than, for example, technological performance. In the literature in other disciplines, such as technology, there is more focus on responsible innovation through the development of voluntary, objectively measurable standards (Meijer et al, 2023), and this may affect the focus on effectiveness as well as measuring outcomes. However, there are studies that address difficulties in the implementation of national and sectoral IT programmes (Alidousti and Sahli, 2024), so we recommend further research on the scaling of social initiatives in other sectors, including the focus on retaining effectiveness.…”

“…Retention of effectiveness. Evidence-based policymaking is a critical issue globally (Meijer et al, 2023), but attention to the effectiveness of evidence-based social initiatives in other contexts is underexposed (Williams, 2014). Retaining effectiveness is twofold.…”

How does the institutional environment influence the scaling process of social initiatives? An empirical exploration in the Dutch public sector

“…This aspect remains underexposed in the literature on the scaling of social initiatives. The literature on sustainability and technology already recognizes collective responsibility on a voluntary basis as part of Responsible Innovation, for example in the development of common technical standards (Meijer et al. , 2023).…”