How can RRI become a permanent aspect of science teaching?

The study described in this paper is being carried out within the EU project IRRESISTIBLE. The project aims at producing teaching materials suited for introducing in school topics concerning cutting edge research, taking into account the issues of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and proposing students’ activities according to the IBSE approach. Moreover the project aims at combining formal and informal education by fostering collaboration between schools and science centers and research centers. The structure of the project is based on local Communities of Learners (CoLs) made of school teachers together with science researchers, experts in the field of science education and science communication and science centre staff. The Bologna CoL, where both physics and chemistry competences are present, has chosen to work on the topic of Nanotechnology application to electric energy production from light and to new ways for processing, storing and transferring information. Based on the activities developed in the first stage of the project this study was designed in order to investigate if and how the introduction of RRI aspects could become a stable component of the school curricula. The general research question guiding the data collection and analysis is how the RRI perspective can become attractive and feasible for the teachers. Questionnaires, interviews and focus groups were designed and used to collect opinions from the teachers and the students about their experience within the IRRESISTIBLE project. The data analysis shows that several factors made the introduction of the RRI perspective highly positive, namely the students’ motivation, the quality of teaching contents, the opportunity of collaboration between formal and informal education, whereas some conditions that were only partially satisfied proved to be critical for the development of the project activities, namely the relationship with other disciplines and the specific competences required from the teachers.