Challenge: Technology organizations are innovating fast, in ways that impact both individuals and society, and this affects how products and applications are developed, manufactured and brought to market. Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency, wanted to understand the desire for standardization around ‘responsible innovation’ in sectors that were working with cutting-edge technologies.
Our solution: We carried out 48 in-depth interviews with leading innovators across a range of technologies and sectors including AI and big data, life sciences, robotics and autonomous systems, social media, and advanced materials. The research revealed that an overwhelming majority of these participants saw the importance of having a framework governing innovative technologies.
The result: The findings gave Innovate UK the evidence to move forwards with a guidance framework to help organizations demonstrate responsible innovation. The research uncovered stakeholder opinions about why a framework would be important to their industry and exactly how it could be used by them and others connected with the innovation process in future.