Contextualising the RRI approach for universities: The importance of place and positioning when determining societal impact

Jesper Rohr Hansen, Mette Mechlenborg, and Marie Blomgren Jepsen, 2018

RRI seeks to further a European knowledge-based competitiveness. The RRI-approach does so by suggesting that higher-educational institutions such as universities align their educational and research activities with the policy dimensions of RRI. While these dimensions display appealing agendas, universities will find it challenging to match all of these. Accordingly, RRI as an approach could run the risk of demotivating universities. In order to reduce such a risk, the paper presents a case study of a Danish university.

The paper argues that a concrete way to make RRI operational is to focus on the geography in which universities are placed. From this outset a place-based approach can be strategically adopted by a university to determine the kinds of specific societal interaction and impact with local stakeholders a university should strive for.
 

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