Ralf Lindner

Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI | ISI · Competence Center Policy & Society

This contribution addresses the issue of horizontal policy-coordination in the area of STI-policy by (1) presenting the main obstacles to effective policy coordination, (2) applying a two-dimensional framework which differentiates between the main areas of coordination (administrative and policy coordination) and (3) introducing different modes of...

The Res-AGorA projectRes-AGorA was a three-year, EU FP7 project (2013–2016) which has co-constructed a good-practice framework, the “Responsibility Navigator”, with practitioners and strategic decision makers. This framework facilitates reflective processes involving multiple stakeholders and policy-makers with the generic aim of making European re...

Science, technology and innovation (STI) policies are increasingly geared towards addressing objectives reaching beyond an immediate economic focus on growth and competitiveness. This "normative turn" is expressed in the strategic reorientation of national and supranational STI policies to address the so-called ‘grand challenges’. While this reorie...

https://www.isi.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/isi/dokumente/cci/innovation-systems-policy-analysis/2020/discussionpaper_64_2020.pdf A more recent version of this article has been published in Science & Public Policy: https://doi.org/10.1093/scipol/scab044

Historically, scientific and engineering expertise has been key in shaping research and innovation (R&I) policies, with benefits presumed to accrue to society more broadly over time (1). But there is persistent and growing concern about whether and how ethical and societal values are integrated into R&I policies and governance, as we confront publi...

This open access book explores the relevance of the concept of technology assessment (TA) on an international and global level. Technologies play a key role in addressing global challenges such as climate change, population aging, digitization, and health. At the same time, their use increases the need for coordinated action and governance at the g...

This chapter aims to describe and highlight current and relevant developments of technology assessment (TA) across several countries and attempts to cluster these according to main areas of activity or modes of institutionalization. By tracing current TA or “TA-like” activities in selected countries across the globe, it highlights several developme...

Modern societies are immensely permeated by technologies and thus also dependent on them. Increasingly, this is also true for countries in the global South. As a result, questions about the interdependencies of technology and society, the possible mutual influences and the social governance of technology are becoming a global challenge.

This chapter draws tentative conclusions from the findings of the book contributions with regard to possible future ways to organise TA on a global scale. These considerations comprise a discussion of possible organisational shapes that can support the global interchange and sharing of TA capacities, and increase its political relevance and operabi...

Missions promise to mobilize science, technology and innovation policy in conjunction with other sectoral policies to address pressing societal challenges. Although they aspire to solve the problems of humankind, the implementation of such transformative approaches remains a challenge to policymakers across the world: multi-dimensionality, a wide a...

The concept of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) has experienced a remarkable career within the European Union's policies for funding research and innovation, culminating in the embedding of RRI as a cross-cutting issue in the Horizon 2020 (H2020) framework programme. However, despite favourable conditions , empirical evidence shows that ef...

Over the last years, numerous national governments as well as the European Union have initiated so-called missions to guide transformation processes and tackle grand challenges, such as climate change, digitalization and an aging society. Previous research on mission-oriented innovation policies (MOIP) has mainly focused on conceptual reflections a...

Over the last years, numerous governments as well as the European Union have initiated so-called missions as part of their research and innovation policy strategies to guide transformation processes and tackle grand challenges, such as climate change, digitalization and an aging society (Larrue 2021). As noted by Janssen et al. (2021), existing res...

The High-Tech Strategy 2025 (HTS 2025) is the central science, technology and innovation (STI) strategy of Germany's federal government. Commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI provides scientific support to the HTS 2025 and develops recommendations for...

Seit 2019 begleitet das Fraunhofer-Institut für System- und Innovationsforschung ISI die HTS 2025 wissenschaftlich und erarbeitet im Auftrag der Bundesregierung Empfehlungen für die zukünftige Politik. Aus dem Projekt sind zwei Abschlussberichte mit jeweils unterschiedlichen thematischen Schwerpunkten hervorgegangen. Der vorliegende Bericht (Abschl...

This report is part of the scientific support action to the German High-Tech Strategy 2025. Whereas the first volume provides an overview of the lessons learned for future mission- oriented innovation policies (MOIP) in Germany and beyond, this second volume outlines a novel framework for monitoring and impact assessment of MOIP. In particular, it...

Mission-oriented policies (MOIP) have become important means to foster transformative change in many countries. Yet, approaches for assessing these policies' impacts are still in their infancy, not least due to the complexity of MOIP. To address this gap, we propose a toolbox approach that supports policy-makers during policy design and implementat...

To address grand societal challenges, such as decarbonization and digitalization, many countries are turning to Mission-oriented Innovation Policy (MOIP) approaches. MOIP approaches are able to facilitate and guide complex transformative processes, but they also pose new challenges and requirements for policy-makers. To improve current practices i...

This second Mission Analysis Report (MAR2) zoomed into the design of four selected missions (Combating Cancer, Reducing CO2 emissions in industry, Circular Economy, Ensuring good living and working conditions throughout the country) of the German Hightech Strategy 2025. It explores how mission goals are linked to policy instruments, with the aim to...

Our societies are facing major societal and environmental challenges. A central approach of politics to take on these major societal challenges and to shape these transformations is the so-called mission-oriented innovation policy. We see this as a cross-sectoral and cross-disciplinary approach that defines ambitious and clearly formulated goals -...

The promise of mission-oriented innovation policies (MOIP) to address some of the grand societal challenges as a cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary approach to innova-tion policy with increased directionality has raised high hopes. However, the complexity attached to MOIP constitutes a challenge, both for policy-makers and innovation schol-ars. S...

The promise of mission-oriented innovation policies (MOIP) to address some of the grand societal challenges as a cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary approach to innovation policy with increased directionality has raised high hopes. However, the complexity attached to MOIP constitutes a challenge, both for policy-makers and innovation scholars. See...

Many governments in Europe and beyond have subscribed to mission-oriented innovation policies (MOIPs), aiming to steer innovation systems to directly address grand societal challenges. The emerging diversity of MOIPs, however, creates difficulties to define this approach and assess its effectiveness and efficiency. In this paper, we propose a new t...

Modern innovation policies should target in equal measure both economic competitiveness and societal progress. They should be informed by ambitious, overarching principles-based strategies that enable us to formulate specific political goals, or missions. We also need governance structures that allow for the agile, participatory and inclusive imple...

Networking and exchange are important drivers of innovation. Cross-sectoral dialogue and cooperation between leaders in the business, research, politics and civil society communities is essential to developing and disseminating societally relevant innovations. Presenting examples of successful (mission-oriented) cluster concepts, matching solutions...

Innovative capacity is essential to economic and technological competitiveness, and to solving the major problems we face as a society. Innovations developed under favorable conditions are the fundamental driver of transformative change targeting a societally and ecologically sustainable economic and social order. Drawing on the variety of good str...

Die Komplexität soziotechnischer Herausforderungen und die Ungewissheit von Entscheidungen nimmt zu und so der Bedarf an wissensbasierter und optionaler Bewertung und Beratung. Technikfolgenabschätzung (TA) kann alternative Zugänge und Perspektiven auf aktuelle Entscheidungslagen geben. Das Handbuch leitet dazu an, neue Antworten für die je zur Unt...

Der intensiv diskutierte Begriff Transformation bezeichnet den umfassenden Umbau gesellschaftlicher Strukturen, um gesellschaftliche Herausforderungen durch tiefgreifende Veränderungen der Energie-, Verkehrs-, Produktions- und Agrarsysteme zu adressieren. Da solch komplexe Transformationen stets mit Unsicherheiten über Effekte und Folgen einhergehe...

The intensively discussed term transformation refers to the comprehensive restructuring of processes and behaviour in order to address societal challenges posed by far-reaching changes in energy, transport, production and agricultural systems. Since such complex transformations are always accompanied by uncertainties about their effects and consequ...

Mandated by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI) provides scientific support to the German HTS 2025. The project has twofold goals: First, it provides evidence-based scientific policy consultation for the implementation of the current Hightech Strategy. Secondly, by...

The publication of our article “Introducing the dilemma of societal alignment for inclusive and responsible research and innovation” (Ribeiro et al., 2018) was accompanied by three commentaries (Guston, 2018; Nordmann, 2018; and Kuzma and Roberts, 2018). In the original article, we invoked Collingridge’s dilemma of the social control of technology...

Over the last years, research and innovation (R&I) policies have been increasingly linked to addressing the Grand Societal Challenges. This development towards a new generation of mission orientation has led to the emergence of a variety of policy initiatives at supra-national, national and sub-national level with different degrees of scope, goals,...

Leading RRI researchers and practitioners, together with policymakers and stakeholder organisations, discussed the state-of-the-art and future perspectives for RRI at the ‘Pathways to Transformation’ conference in June 2019, an event which was extended beyond Brussels, for instance by ca. 330 original tweets and ca. 840 retweets from ca. 160 unique...

Lindner and Aichholzer provide an introductory overview of the theoretical and conceptual foundations of electronic democracy, thereby providing analytical insights on the interplay between Internet-based communication and democratic processes. To this end, different normative views, aims and approaches of e-democracy are presented and systematical...

In this chapter, Nielsen et al. propose options for improving e-participation at the EU level without changing underlying legal frameworks. In response to the challenges to e-participation, which arise out of current institutional designs, the authors make creative use of the research results presented earlier in the book to suggest ‘low-hanging fr...

This open access book explores how digital tools and social media technologies can contribute to better participation and involvement of EU citizens in European politics. By analyzing selected representative e-participation projects at the local, national and European governmental levels, it identifies the preconditions, best practices and shortcom...

This project (2019-2021) supports the implementation and advancement of the German Hightech-Strategy (HTS) 2025 with its 12 dedicated missions addressing different societal challenges (health/change, sustainability/ environment, mobility/technology). The directionality of mission-oriented policies constitutes challenges for the implementation and e...

We argue that the commitment to science-society integration and Responsible Research and Innovation in past European framework programmes has already made considerable progress in better aligning research and innovation with European societies. The framework programmes have important socialisation effects and recent research point to positive trend...

Online available at: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6404/762.2

In this discussion paper, we outline and reflect on some of the key challenges that influence the development and uptake of more inclusive and responsible forms of research and innovation. Taking these challenges together, we invoke Collingridge’s famous dilemma of social control of technology to introduce a complementary dilemma that of ‘societal...

Public and scholarly debate regularly refers to the long-standing and continuing democratic deficit in the European Union. This democratic deficit is explained by the EU's complex and mutually reinforcing mix of institutional design features. To make optimal use of the potential provided by digital tools for new modes of political communication and...

In order to make e-participation tools at the EU level more successful, this report provides four policy options: 1) Stimulate experiments with participatory budgeting in relation to the regional and social funds, since e-budgeting produces the strongest results when it comes to impact on decision-making, 2) expand online engagement with MEPs beyon...

The most important factors for successful e-participation identified in the comparison of 22 case studies are: a close and clear link of e-participation processes to a concrete formal decision-making process; the participatory process and the contribution of its outputs to the overall decision-making process have to be clarified to participants fro...

It is still believed by many that the perceived democratic deficit of the European Union indicates the need for fostering a European public sphere as a space for debate across national public spheres. Moreover, there is a consensus that new modes of political communication and participation via the internet can play a role in that respect. Far-reac...

It is still believed by many that the perceived democratic deficit of the European Union indicates the need for fostering a European public sphere as a space for debate across national public spheres. Moreover, there is a consensus that new modes of political communication and participation via the internet can play a role in that respect. Far-reac...

Der schillernde Begriff der Grand Challenges ist in aller Munde und Grund für eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit diesem forschungsleitenden Konzept. Die Buchbeiträge widmen sich dem Thema sowohl in theoretischer Hinsicht, als auch mit Blick auf die Domänen Gesundheit, Digitalisierung und Umwelt.

There has been a growing focus, among both policymakers and researchers, on ideas of responsible research and innovation, as a way to ensure that new sources of public value are captured. The EC defines RRI as " a process where all societal actors (researchers, citizens, policy makers, business, third sector organisations etc) work together during...

The quest for Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) has experienced a remarkable upsurge during the past few years. While the debate on RRI, as it is primarily labelled at the EU level, is far from being completed and stabilised, the demand for concrete conceptual approaches and instruments, which can contribute to the aim of making research an...

Responsible research and Innovation (RRI) is a rather novel approach in the context of science, technology and innovation governance which has gained significance at the level of the European Union, but also on the national level in a number of European countries. In essence, RRI aims to better align the processes and the outcomes of research and i...

Together with the Res-AGorA book Navigating Towards Shared Responsibility in Research and Innovation (DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.4037.5440), this policy note represents the final output of our project. The purpose of this policy note is twofold: First, we want to call attention to the key findings of the Res-AGorA project. We are convinced that Res-AGorA...

With the rise of the WWW as a platform for mass media, the question of the Internet’s potential to change politics and democratic decision-making quickly captured the attention of many researchers and practitioners. Despite an impressive body of literature and numerous experiences with the political dimension of the new media technologies, there ar...

E-voting, and in particular Internet-based remote voting, has been a controversial topic since its early beginnings more than a decade ago. For instance, many proponents of Internet voting argue that the introduction of an online voting channel would help to reverse the decline in turnout rates. Despite all the hypothetical benefits, however, an es...

“Electronic Democracy in Europe” investigates the current state and potentials of e-democracy in Europe from three partially overlapping and interlocking perspectives—e-public, e-participation and e-voting. The final chapter of this book summarises the main results of the preceding analyses and combines a prospective outlook with recommendations fo...

Res-AGorA was a three-year, EU FP7 project (2013-2016) which has co-constructed a good-practice framework, the “Responsibility Navigator”, with practitioners and strategic decision makers. This framework facilitates reflective processes involving multiple stakeholders and policy-makers with the generic aim of making European research and innovation...

This edited book is the first of its kind to systematically address the intersection of e-democracy and European politics. It contributes to an improved understanding of the role that new media technologies play in European politics and the potential impact that Internet-based political participation processes may have on modern-day representative...

The purpose of this brief is to summarise for policy and other stakeholder audiences the extensive empirical research which informed the Res-AGorA team's understanding of 'RRI-in-the-making', highlighting the key lessons and policy implications of our work. It was clear from the outset that the notion of responsibility in Research and Innovation (R...

Research and innovation activities need to become more responsive to societal challenges and concerns. This requires identification, development and implementation of measures and procedures transforming research and innovation in a way that responsibility becomes an institutionalized ambition. This second policy note of the Res-AGorA project (www....

2011 was a pivotal year. It was the year when the originators of the first formal normative frameworks of Responsible (Research) and Innovation (RRI), lost contact with their own history. Our paper aims to recover this history. It does so in two ways. First it develops the concept of de-facto responsible research and innovation, referring to the on...

Research and innovation activities need to become more responsive to societal challenges and concerns. The Responsibility Navigator, developed in the Res-AGorA project, supports decision-makers to govern such activities towards more conscious responsibility. What is considered “responsible” will always be defined differently by different actor grou...

The uptake and development of responsible research and innovation (RRI) ranges from policy debates to initiatives in the governance of research, technology and innovation. In this context, “responsibility” is interpreted with a twofold goal: a precautionary goal of avoiding an adverse impact on research and innovation and a promotional goal of supp...

The GRACE project had two key research objectives: Assessing health, environmental and socio-economic impacts of GM plants (risks and benefits) and testing various types of animal feeding trials and alternative in-vitro methods for health risk assessments of GM food and feed. Substantial efforts were also invested in making the project processes an...

Der Beitrag will keinen weiteren normativen Beitrag zur Definition von „Verantwortlichkeit“ in Forschung und Innovation leisten. Vielmehr geht es darum, das Verständnis über Voraussetzungen und förderliche Bedingungen für die verstärkte Ausgestaltung von Forschungs- und Innovationsprozessen im Sinne von Verantwortlichkeit zu schärfen und auf dieser...

Assessments of emerging science and technologies can assist actors to anticipate and influence techno-scientific development. Although the importance of contextual factors in techno-scientific development has been stressed, the extent to which economic, societal and political trends are integrated into assessment practices is unknown. Focusing on a...

Petitions are an instrument, guaranteed in the German Basic Law, for protecting citizens’ interests and rights vis-à-vis the state; they are also a means of citizen participation. They are characterized by a low level of formal requirements and are also a suitable tool for individuals and small groups to articulate their interests. Use of the inter...

Obwohl seit dem Aufstieg des Internets zum Massenmedium in den 1990er Jahren Ernüchterung über die Demokratisierungswirkung der neuen Medien eingetreten ist, werden regelmäßig weitreichende Erwartungen über der politische Transformationspotenzial des Internets formuliert. So wird häufig postuliert, dass das Internet demokratische Politik über kurz...

Internetbasierte Konsultationsprozesse – E-Konsultationen – haben das Potenzial, Parlamente, Regierungen und Verwaltungen bei der Vorbereitung, Ausgestaltung und Konkretisierung von politischen Entscheidungen und Maßnahmen zu unterstützen. Zahlreiche öffentliche Institutionen, darunter auch nationale Regierungen, nutzen diese Form der internetbasie...