Beginning in 2012, the Bassetti Foundation and the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes at Arizona State University will offer a prize for responsible innovation.

The prize will bring positive attention to individuals and organizations engaged in responsible approaches to knowledge-based innovation and serve as a focal point of discussion among innovators, academics, policy makers and entrepreneurs who are engaged with questions of innovation and its societal consequences.

Prize winners might come from anywhere in the globe and from any sector of the economy. They might be engaged in innovation at any stage in a long and often circuitous process. What they will have in common is substantial commitment a (still-evolving) set of practices, perhaps including: a self-conscious attention to important and under-addressed societal challenges of global or local concern; a positive approach toward fulfilling the requirements of existing voluntary or mandatory programs regarding responsible innovation; substantive attempts to integrate knowledge about plausible societal consequences – from a variety of sources including prospective users – in an anticipatory fashion; and a manifest desire to deliver innovative products at a price people can afford rather than at one the market can bear.

The Bassetti/CSPO PRI will be awarded with the advice of a small set of jurors prominent across fields of commerce, communication, philanthropy, academe and others. Jurors will also assist Bassetti and CSPO in the going refinement of the criteria for awarding the prize.

Over the next six months, representatives from Bassetti and CSPO will begin recruiting jurors and developing potential sponsors for the PRI. Once the jury is assembled, we will work with the jurors to refine the eligibility for the prize, the criteria and process for decision-making, and a public call for nominations. Bassetti and CSPO will also develop, in conjunction with the jury, a communication and dissemination plan to provide the prize winner(s) with richly deserved public profile.

Generally, CSPO & the Bassetti Foundation will focus on a process-based rather than an outcome-based set of criteria. We believe responsible innovation may be mostly likely to occur in the presence of practices and processes which:
– abide by existing rules, regulations, and assurances of research conduct (e.g., human subjects protection, conflicts of interest regulations, professional codes of practice and ethics);
– participate in existing voluntary programs responsive to societal needs;
– explore the ethical, legal, and social implications of innovation, and work to identify all relevant stakeholders who might be affected by a particular innovation;
– engage the public about research and research-based innovation;
– are transparent about their work;

This list is surely a partial one, and one purpose of the prize and this announcement is to encourage its elaboration – that is to say, your comments requested.

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Photo: Binocles adriàtics by Valentí Parrilla Aixelà from Flickr