Digitalize or Die: Dynamic Drivers of Responsible Research and Innovation in Health and Welfare services

This proposal addresses the issue of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in the ICT sector with the focus on health and welfare services, in particular welfare technology. The project combines macro-level studies of regions and communities with micro-level studies of firms and individual users. It is organized in three work packages. WP1 addresses the regional and community level, asking how the perception of what constitutes responsible research and innovation varies across different regional and social contexts. The major finding is that bottom-up initiated project that arise from the stakeholder needs are more dynamic in their development. They seems to be need-driven and better adapted to market penetration. On the other hand, top-down projects often struggle to get right user involvement and thus the diffusion of such innovation is more complex process. WP2 addresses the challenges of the commercialization process of responsible innovations. Major findings indicate that start ups in e-Health often meet the so-called institutional wall, where the procurement process, especially in countries where public healthcare is dominating, acts as a barrier to market. Furthermore, we find that a majority of start-ups in the health sector consist of what we call innovative users where new ideas and solutions originate from users' own experience and challenges. Due to a lack of reputation and size, it is resource-consuming for start-up companies to be able to achieve RI processes such as full inclusiveness. It is seen that in order to survive in this sector, attention must be turned from user to customer - and this is a challenge to ensure RRI in these processes. We believe that regional and national initiatives will help to develop innovative approaches to the procurement process and to ensure better collective use of resources to include stakeholders (patients, family members) at the beginning of the development process. In addition to that, we conducted a larger case of Stavanger Hospital to explore how patients feedback leads to process innovation in hospitals and what role digitalization plays in this. Our findings indicate that patients suggest improvements for hospital practices (process innovation). However, it is difficult to respond to patients´ feedback and to improve things if it requires coordination between departments or extra budget resources. A part of research focusing on Patient initiated innovations through investigating Patient Innovation.com, a social platform established by our Portuguese partners. On the platform, over 800 innovative solutions are presented from 70 different countries. Our research show that those innovators are different in sense that only very limited percent of them want to commercialize their solutions. The questions remains on how the patient-driven innovations can be diffused to the market, how patients can be also encouraged to share their solutions with healthcare and business professionals in a responsible way. WP3 focuses on policy recommendations. The main result is a peer-reviewed book: "Empowering the Patient - Responsible Innovation in E-Health" with 15 chapters, including 12 empirically-based chapters representing e-health innovations from all partner countries, was published in July 2019 with Edward Elgar Publisher (Level 2). We see that patients range from being passive at one end to being extremely innovative at the other. Digital technology gives the user a new platform and patients are therefore an important source and driving force for responsible innovation. Digital technologies make it easier for the patient's engagement and thus make patients "more knowledgeable, involved and direct contributors" to the innovations in health. In addition, a work presented in Science and Public Policy Journal compare two key policy tools for innovation: Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialization (RIS3). While RRI includes visions, values and stakeholders' perspectives, RIS3 is more focused on regional scenarios. This policy publication received a feedback from EU Commission representative once it was published. The DOD project has several practical implications: For example, an innovation lab has been established under the auspices of Validé and the Norwegian Smart Care Cluster (NSCC), which takes over the results of the Digitalize or Die project. The work and collaboration in NSCC will continue in a new project Releasing the Power of users in 2019-2024.

The project has contributed to changes in competency and practice of our partners, Norwegian Smart Care Cluster and led to establishment of the Innovation Living Lab with focus on user involvement. It also contributed to informing and having a fruitful dialog with Pension Union as manifestation of elderly population for which health and welfare technologies are developed. Project has enhanced international research collaboration as it included researchers from six different countries and from nine universities. Project resulted in 62 scholarly publications, including articles in international peer review journals, books and book chapters; 113 dissemination measures for general public and for users. Project contributed to a long-term change in how users and patients are perceived by reginal and national authorities in health and welfare systems in Norway. On the regional level, we collaborated with an inter-municipal network for welfare technologies, comprised of 13 municipalities

This proposal addresses the question of how ICT research and innovation may contribute to developing solutions to grand societal challenges in a responsible way. We address the issue of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in the ICT sector with the focus on health and welfare services, in particular welfare technology and telemedicine. The project combines macro-level studies of regions and communities with micro-level studies of firms and individual users. It will be organized in three work packages. WP1 addresses the regional and community level, asking how the perception of what constitutes responsible research and innovation varies across different regional and social contexts and how this interplays with the technological innovation process. WP2 addresses the challenges of the commercialization process of responsible innovations. Policy recommendations will be presented in WP3. We will employ a combination of different research methods. Data will be collected both through longitudinal case studies including Norway (two regions), USA, UK, Portugal, the Netherlands and Australia, as well as a survey of end users in Norway. Project include one PhD student. The comparative research design and involvement of partners from six different countries, each with specific competence on the subject, allow us to draw comparative analysis and to suggest actionable recommendations on policies for strengthening regional capabilities for responsible innovation. In this project we wish to bring the principles of responsible research also to our work, and therefore we will create stakeholders reference group to provide inputs and feedback on our project. Users are defined as innovative enterprises working on RRI and connected to the project, community actors, policy makers, users of research results like RCN.