2010 was a busy year for the Foundation. Several meetings were held at the foundation conference suite in Milan and members of the staff traveled widely in order to participate in national and international events and promote discussion and awareness of the idea of responsibility in innovation.

On 13th of April Piero Bassetti and Paolo Zanenga delivered a lecture at the Doctorate School of Turin Polytechnic. This wide reaching lecture was entitled ‘Performance and Governance of Innovation’ and was part of the ‘Complexity of Networks of Understanding’ course (my translation) and video of the proceedings are available here (the lecture was delivered in Italian).

On 3rd May a seminar by Prof. Wiebe Bijker of The University of Maastricht was given here at the foundation. In the seminar Bijker discussed his latest book entitled ‘The Paradox of Scientific Authority, The Role Of Scientific Advice in Democracies‘. The ensuing discussion addressed many topics that had previously (and subsequently) been approached by the foundation, including citizen participation in decision making, the position of scientific experts in political decision making and tensions between scientific study and society at large.
Margherita Fronte conducted and published a follow on interview with Dr Bijker and recordings of the seminar are available through the site.

On the 5th and 6th of May, President Piero Bassetti was a guest at the ‘NeuroEthics: Big issues. Meetings about Neurosciences and Society’ conference in Padova. The conference was promoted by the Sigma-Tau foundation and the Bassetti Foundation. Dr Bassetti awarded prizes to students for their posters about responsible innovation and the entire conference proceedings (including Dr. Bassetti’s paper) were streamed live through the foundation website (video). Conference details are available here.

On 6th and 7th of June Cristina Grasseni participated at the international meeting of Harvard University, Science and Democracy Network in London, as part of the Royal Society’s 350th anniversary celebrations. Other participants included David Guston who then went on to visit the foundation in Milan. Grasseni represented the Bassetti Foundation, which is currently supporting the Science and Democracy Network.

On 16th of June the foundation hosted Lennard Davis, author of ‘Go Ask Your Father: one man’s obsessions with finding his origins through DNA testing’.
In an interesting discussion, the author addressed many of the ethical and personal issues that the use of DNA testing brings, but also raised issues that were later taken up on the website such as the reliability of scientific reporting in the press and the question of how to best educate the public into scientific thinking. A report of the discussion is also available.

The 7th of July saw the visit to Milan and seminar of Prof David Guston of the Arizona State University, a follow up to his meeting with Cristina Grasseni in London as previously mentioned. In his seminar Prof Guston explained the work of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes and The Centre for Technology in Society at Arizona State University.
One of his major themes was preventative governance, and a report including photos of the meeting and slides used is available here.

Foundation correspondent Jeff Ubois and board member Ottavia Bassetti are currently working with Prof. Guston to set up a prize for responsible innovation in collaboration with Arizona State University.

On 28th of July Piero Bassetti and Cristina Grasseni visited the ‘Università di scienze gastronomiche‘ (University of Gastronomic Science) in Pollenzo where they met the President of Slow Food Carlo Petrini. During the meeting issues such as the political significance of an agenda such as that raised by Slow Food and also possible similarities between the work of the Bassetti Foundation on responsible innovation and that carried out by the Slow Food movement were raised. Further to this meeting Grasseni published an article entitled ‘ Il cibo come innovazione responsabile e come patrimonio antropologico‘.

On 3rd and 4th of September the EASST conference (European Association for the Study of Science and Technology) was held in Trento, during which Cristina Grasseni and Giuseppe Pellegrini co-convened a panel entitled “Practicing responsibilities”. Max Fochler and Guido Nicolosi, both of whom have written on the foundation web site in the past, also participated in the conference. Cristina Grasseni also delivered a paper entitled ‘Food, science and the challenges of innovation’ and a report of the proceedings is available here.

On the 29th of September Piero Bassetti represented the foundation at the University of Bergamo for the presentation of Paolo Zanenga’s new book entitled ‘Le reti di Diotima‘. Piero Bassetti and Gianluca Bocchi of the University of Bergamo conducted a well followed and fully participated discussion of the book in the presence of the author.

On 22nd of October Cristina Grasseni participated in the EU sponsored Youth Health conference: “Food For Mind. Mind For Health” in Turin. The event was organized by IUHPE (International Union for Health Promotion and Education) – CIPES (Confederazione Italiana per la Promozione della Salute e dell’Istruzione) in collaboration with Terra Madre. Grasseni moderated a session dedicated to promoting discussion of food sustainability as a possible example of responsible innovation. Slides, photos and a video are available here.

On 19th of November Cristina Grasseni and Jeff Ubois participated in a panel on behalf of the foundation at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in New Orleans. The panel, entitled ‘Sustainable Innovations: forging partnerships, knowledge exchange, and reciprocity’ was organized by Cristina Orsatti of the Edmund Mach Foundation in collaboration with the Bassetti Foundation. The abstract is available to read here and the ensuing discussion generated an array of questions about social and political changes brought about by sustainable development practices.
Jeff Ubois presented his recently published pamphlet ‘Conversations on Innovation’, a copy of which can be downloaded here (free).