The aim of this project was to take stock of the empirical studies that examined the motivations and processes that led to the development of responsible innovations (RIs) that have implications for health and social care.

An article that provides a synthesis of 17 qualitative studies and develops a model of the goals and processes of responsible innovations was published in the journal Innovations-Revue d’économie et de management.

Responsible Innovation (RI) goals and processes model

According to this model, the context of emergence stimulates the development of RI oriented towards a common good, whether it involves broad collective interests (e.g., wastewater treatment) or those of marginalized groups (e.g., making a building accessible to people with disabilities).

Actors include the leaders of the RI project, i.e., the individuals and organizations that design and develop it, and their partners, who may change according to the stage of innovation development (investors, representatives of municipal, regional or national public authorities, suppliers, potential users, community organizations, etc.).

Actors pursue goals that are not all related to a common good and may include particular interests (establishing one’s own network of contacts, developing a market, increasing a city’s influence, etc.). Anchoring refers to the actions through which leaders and partners manage (or not) to increase the relevance of RI along its development, experimentation and appropriation, and this is achieved by reconciling the goals pursued.

Resource work is characterized by both ideological and material flexibility. This process combines three activities that enable the production of RI by promoting learning, collaborative work within networks and the emergence of a protective “niche.” It is indeed important to create a material and socio-cultural space that allows a RI to develop and establish its place on the market despite —or thanks to— its non-standard character. To the opposite, letting established market forces play out without working on the conditions of the construction and reception of a given RI reduces its possibilities of emergence.

Ultimately, RIs can succeed in occupying a market of their own by remaining a unique case, by being reproduced (for example, a bike-sharing system is set up in another city) or by being more widely and institutionally diffused (a mass-produced electric car captures a market segment). In this way, RI contributes to modifying its context of appropriation, making it more conducive to the deployment of activities that consolidate its anchoring.

Former Project Lead: Geneviève Daudelin

Contact for the project: Pascale Lehoux

In 2018, Palindrome —a magazine bringing together health and literature— concluded its proof of concept phase by successfully publishing two issues.

This magazine combines literary creations and scientific content from a new vantage point, underlining the social and cultural mutations that innovations in health can bring. A palindrome is a word that can be read from left to right as well as from right to left. Likewise, this magazine offers to travel back and forth between literature and health in a fruitful way.

Palindrome is based on an interdisciplinary approach, bringing food for thought to the readers about health innovations so as to strike their imagination. To that end, Palindrome is inviting writers, experts and researchers, both beginners and seasoned, to tell us their story about an innovation in health, whether technological or social, that has changed their life in a meaningful way. Practitioners are also welcome to contribute to the magazine.

Read Palindrome online: magpalindrome.ca

Former Project Lead: Frédérique Dubé

Contact for this project : Pascale Lehoux

Renata Pozelli is currently pursuing her doctoral research project on the responsible production and consumption of food.

Our food is produced, processed and distributed within “food systems.” Currently, the way such systems are organized in most countries is characterized by the presence of “dominant” organizations and practices, developed during the Industrial Revolution, in a context of demographic and economic growth. However, previous studies have already shown the negative effects of these dominant practices on human health and on the environment. To change this situation, a transition to better practices in food systems is currently taking place. Initiatives that incorporate attributes of responsibility are emerging all around the world. They include, for example, rooftop agriculture and organic basket networks, among others. However, the current state of knowledge is limited since little is known about how these innovations are emerging and how a transition to more responsible food systems can be achieved.

To fill this gap, this doctoral thesis aims to better understand food system transitions in the context of an established and an emerging economy: the province of Quebec and the state of São Paulo. These regions face different food security challenges, but both show a high dependency upon the dominant food system and an increased interest in innovative systems. A multiple case study design is applied and combines interviews with organizations in both regions with secondary data analysis. The results of this thesis, which is comprised of four articles, contribute to the consolidation of organizations and food practices that contribute to health and, therefore, responsible food systems.

• Pozelli Sabio, R., & Lehoux, P. (2019). How can alternative food systems contribute to the sustainable development goals? Systèmes alimentaires/Food systems, 2019(4), 209-218.
• Pozelli Sabio, R., Lehoux, P. (2022). How does context contribute to and constrain the emergence of responsible innovation in food systems? Results from a multiple case study. Sustainability. 14(13), 7776.
• Pozelli Sabio, R., Lehoux, P. (2023). Characterizing food systems to better understand their vulnerabilities: A case study in Québec and São Paulo. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems. 38, E25.
• Pozelli Sabio, R., Lehoux, P. (soumis). The contribution of Responsible Innovation to food systems transition: Results from a multiple case study.

Project Lead : Renata Pozelli

Experimenting and enhancing RIH design tools

How can we help health innovators who wish to work with RIH’s dimensions and attributes to design and develop responsible innovations?

To answer this question, we collaborated with the TransMedTech Institute of Polytechnique Montréal and implemented, in Fall 2019, a co-design project to identify tools that can design responsible innovations in health. Eight teams of health innovators from different professional fields, including rehabilitation, biomedical engineering, communication, design, and management were recruited, for a total of 17 participants. Working with the RIH framework as a design brief, participants conceptually redesigned an existing innovation in order to make it more responsible.

To do so, the 9 RIH attributes were transformed into “responsibility cards” and each team received 5 different cards as their design brief. For example:

To increase the innovation’s degree of responsibility, the teams identified tools (e.g., standards, norms, models, criteria, or processes) to support the design of responsible innovations. Then, they shared what they believed were the best tools to include in our RIH Design Toolbox. The latter was made publicly available to those wishing to develop responsible innovations in health in a book published in 2022:

• Lehoux, P., Rivard, L., & Silva, H. P. (2022). Responsible Innovation in Health: Concepts and Tools for Sustainable Impact. Springer Nature.

Project Lead: Lysanne Rivard