On 24 – 25 August 2015 the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) hosted the Fourth International Conference on Responsible Innovation in The Hague, the Netherlands. Readers may recall the conference from last year, when Foreign Correspondent Jonathan Hankins presented during the poster session. This year’s conference aimed to discuss the merits, practices and necessity of responsible innovation for technological development, and Hankins was once again present on behalf of the Foundation.

This year’s conference theme was Responsible Innovation: a European Agenda? The focus was the multiplicity and divergence of values that are at play in the development of new technologies, as well as the importance of involving stakeholders at all stages in research and innovation processes.

The conference aims were also to draw lessons learned from the research projects within the Responsible Innovation program, funded by NWO, as well as invite others to share their experience and research in responsible innovation.

Key note speakers included Professor Steve Rayner, Professorial Fellow and Director of the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society At Keble College Oxford who delivered a lecture entitled Climate Engineering: Responsible Innovation or Reckless Folly?, and Univ.-Prof. Dr. Ulrike Felt Professor of Science and Technology Studies and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Vienna University, whose speech was Respone-able Practices or New Bureaucracies of Virtue: The challenges of making RRI work in academic environments.

Both speakers were extremely interesting and thought provoking. The program followed with presentations on topics ranging through the life sciences, political and public engagement, business and entrepreneurial processes, energy production, food and local and glocalism. The full program and book of abstracts are available here.

The science and policy sessions were once more hosted by Dutch TV and radio presenter Pieter van der Wielen and included a host of interesting guests. The keynote addresses and science and policy sessions of the conference were all accessible via a live stream. The recordings will be available online on the dedicated Youtube-channel, which already contains an impressive archive of previous conferences and events.

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