Design for Responsible Innovation. Social Impacts of Products and Services

Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is considered at EU level as a cross-cutting priority to encourage societal actors to work together during the whole research and innovation process, aligning results and outcomes with the values, needs and expectations of society. In order to investigate the relation between Design Cultures and the multi-level perspective of RRI principles, the Advanced Design Unit of the University of Bologna has launched the 2020-2021 Winter School “Design for Responsible Innovation” working on multiple ecosystems (Italy, Mexico and Chile) with their own territorial capital. The Winter School represented a first experimentation of a methodological approach that was gradually co-designed among the research groups involved, in order to work on an inclusive and non-hegemonic knowledge system. The relationship between the RRI dimension and the design disciplines has led to the creation of an iterative framework, in which the methodological approach has allowed to identify actions and tools to investigate and test how the processes and practices of Design, integrated with the RRI approach, could help to activate dynamic processes within social actors at transnational scale, and can facilitate the design of product-systems able to contribute to the big challenges of the present. The description of two experiences about Gender Equality topic, led the discussion about current educational design model that moves from local to the international dimension. The mutual exchange among teachers, young designers, and institutions creates new learning opportunities beyond territorial borders, introducing the Responsible Thinking and Education as a key to train future designers, able to take a role in mixed groups of interest and power.