ABSTRACT

Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) scholars often emphasise the distributed nature of innovation, but RRI generally targets researchers or innovators (or their organisations). Can we, within an RRI approach, expect consumers to be more active innovation agents and to be held more responsible for driving innovation in the right direction? To explore this question, we studied the societal challenge of food waste. We designed a study consisting of three world cafés to explore consumer perceptions of their own responsibility to engage with the food value chain to innovate to reduce food waste and complemented this with questionnaires. We found that the consumers in this study conceptualise their responsibilities in a passive way, not using current possibilities for communication with food companies. More open and interactive industry-led engagement processes are needed. This requires building competence and capacity to increase such engagement.

摘要

负责任的研究与创新（RRI）学者经常强调创新的分布式本质，但 RRI 通常针对研究人员或创新者（或其组织）。在 RRI 方法中，我们能否期望消费者成为更积极的创新推动者，并为推动创新朝着正确的方向承担更多责任？为了探讨这个问题，我们研究了食物浪费所带来的社会挑战。我们设计了一项由世界各地的三个咖啡馆组成的研究，旨在探讨消费者对参与食品价值链以创新减少食品浪费的责任的看法，并通过问卷调查对此进行补充。我们发现，本研究中的消费者以被动的方式概念化自己的责任，没有利用当前与食品公司沟通的可能性。需要更加开放和互动的行业主导的参与流程。这需要培养能力和能力来增加这种参与。