Innovators are increasingly called upon to help resolve societal challenges such as pandemics, climate change, and social injustice. The complexity, uncertainty, and contestation associated with such wicked problems require them to leverage approaches that help navigate normative and epistemic considerations for decision-making. A large number of scholars and practitioners believe that the procedural approach of Responsible Innovation could offer this. Responsible Innovation aims to align innovations with societal values and worldviews through forms of anticipation, inclusion, reflexivity, and responsiveness. Early anticipatory and reflexive deliberations subsequently provide an understanding of what decisions and outcomes are deemed ethically acceptable in light of uncertainty. This dissertation explores the usefulness of some approaches applied by Responsible Innovation in tackling wicked problems. It suggests that Responsible Innovation paradoxically fosters collaborations while also revealing contestation, and that innovators will need to leverage boundary objects and combine complementary approaches to deal with the (multi-scalar) conflict that is attributed to societal challenges.

Nowadays, research and innovation sectors undergo continuous change through innovations. Innovations consist of numerous environmental, social and financial factors that need to be linked with social and moral values. Towards this direction, the Responsible Innovation (RI) concept has emerged. Although RI is an extensively researched topic, there is a considerable gap between scholars referring to RI and those capturing RI’s institutionalisation in driving organisational change (Genus & Iskandarova, 2018; Yaghmaei, 2018). Therefore, this research seeks to answer the following question: “How effective is the use of Key Performance Indicators for Responsible Innovation in driving organisational change?” This analysis studies eight research (performing or funding) organisations, part of the H2020 Co-Change project, which aims to boost changes in organisational behaviour. Firstly, lab representatives from the studied organisations selected, clustered and weighed the most relevant Key Performance Indicators for their innovation projects. Secondly, participants were asked to measure their selected KPIs over time to assess performance within their labs regarding RI values. Thirdly, between these two rounds of assessment, exploratory, semi-structured interviews were conducted with lab managers and representatives to ask for clarifications behind their choices. Results indicate that anticipation is a highly relevant and desirable aspect in the innovation process that often remains at a theoretical level due to the lack of established, institutionalised activities for innovation processes. Inclusion of diverse stakeholders is essential for balancing all interests. However, it is challenging due to conflicting interests and scarcity of resources, resulting in the under-representation of several societal groups, such as end-users. Reflexivity it is perceived as the most complex dimension. Being utterly objective and putting personal assumptions, motivations or interests aside is challenging. Responsiveness is essential to point out the importance of receiving feedback from society and being attentive to needs regarding innovation (Stilgoe et al., 2013; Kupper et al., 2015). Finally, Openness and Transparency are desirable, but cannot always be possible due to privacy limitations. The main dimensions identified as relevant for the studied labs are diversity, transparency and inclusion in the design processes of the projects. The labs participating in this study benefit from it in various ways; either by small, incremental changes, as a result of gaining learning experience. However, even when no changes occur, the use of RI Key Performance Indicators is considered a helpful reflection tool that can eventually result in actual organisational change. Raising awareness and making researchers reflect on Responsible Innovation’s practices and values through the use of KPIs can eventually become more effective than what can be derived by simply looking at formal assessments, leading to more positive and responsible organisational behaviour. Future research in organisations operating in other industrial sectors, for prolonged periods, with quantitative methods, could be studied and introduced to the KPIs assessment to look for actual changes in organisational performance.