Celebrating the achievements of the £33M UKRI Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Programme

RRI Prompts and Practice Cards

Briefly…

The Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute at the University of Nottingham in collaboration with the Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Hub has developed a set of “high level” Responsible Innovation (RI) Prompts and Practice Cards. These cards highlight 16 different aspects of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) that may be relevant to researchers and innovators.

 

You can use physical copies of the cards in face-to-face activities or use digital copies in online activities (e.g. in a miro collaborative whiteboard).

An RI Prompts and Practice card, "Unintended Consequences"
An example RRI Prompts and Practice card

Each card has:

  • a short title, which summarises the concept or concern,
  • a set of prompts, i.e. questions to reflect on,
  • a set of practices, i.e. things that a research project might do to help to address this issue.

 

The cards are based on the AREA-Plus Framework for RRI: each one emphasises one element of the AREA framework (Anticipate, Reflect, Engage, Act) and one of the “4 Ps” (Purpose, Product, People, Process). These are shown at the bottom of the card, in its colour and on the back.

 

You can use the cards:

  • to explore RRI,
  • to reflect on a project and plan RRI activities,
  • to facilitate a discussion about priorities for RRI in a research or application area,
  • or something completely different…

 

See below for details of how to get the cards and suggested activities.

 

In more detail…

How to get the cards

 

The cards are currently (November 2023) version 3.1.1. This is a small update of the second major public release of the cards (version 2.1, August 2022, was the first major release).

All of the RRI Prompts and Practice cards in a grid
All of the RRI Prompts and Practice cards

 

Images and PDFs of the cards are available at http://doi.org/10.17639/nott.7353

  • If you want to browse the cards on a screen then you can use the Cardographer web app.
  • If you want to quickly look through the cards then see the image above or use the PDF of card fronts and backs.
  • If you want to printcopies yourself on a normal printer then use cut-and-fold PDF; you can print this on regular A4 paper or card, then carefully cut out the cards and fold them in half (glue the two halves or put them in card sleeves).
  • If you want to use the card images online then download the zip file of PNG images of the card faces.
  • If you want to use the cards in miro then you can copy this sample miro board.
  • If you want to print the cards professionally then you can use the PDF of card fronts and backs and the box artwork. We have used Ivory Graphics (in the UK). Note that the cards are tarot size, i.e. 70mm x 120mm and the PDF includes 3mm bleed on all sides. The box artwork is based on Ivory Graphics 17mm tarot tuck box template.

 

Note that the cards are licensed under a CC-BY Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license; credit the University of Nottingham.
 

Acknowledgement: These cards have been developed by the Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute at the University of Nottingham in collaboration with the Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Hub, supported by UKRI [grants EP/T022493/1 and EP/V00784X/1].
 

Please cite: Virginia Portillo, Chris Greenhalgh, Peter J. Craigon, and Carolyn Ten Holter. 2023. Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) Prompts and Practice Cards: a Tool to Support Responsible Practice. In Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Trustworthy Autonomous Systems (TAS ’23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 57, 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1145/3597512.3599721
 
Or for the cards themselves: Chris Greenhalgh, Peter Craigon, Virginia Portillo, Liz Dowthwaite, Elvira Perez Vallejos, Helena Webb, Hanne Gesine Wagner, Bernd Carsten Stahl, Carolyn Ten Holter. 2023. Responsible Innovation (RI) Prompts and Practice Cards (version 3.1.1, November 2023). http://doi.org/10.17639/nott.7353
 

Suggested Activities

Version 3.1 (and above) of the cards includes cards with suggested activities, as well as cards that introduce Responsible Innovation and the AREA Framework and a list of potential stakeholders; see the cards for details.
 

RRI Introduction

 

This can be used as a fairly quick introduction to RRI or the Prompts and Practice cards. It may work best face-to-face (or you can just work through the cards on your own). It takes between 15 minutes and an hour, depending on how many rounds of discussion you have.
 

Instructions:

  1. Set aside the black “Can you agree” cards.
  2. Lay out the RRI cards in a grid reflecting the AREA-Plus framework, i.e. Product, Process, People, Purpose in one direction and Anticipate, Reflect, Engage, Act in the other (as above).
  3. Spend a minute or two looking at the card titles and the grid to get a sense of what the columns and rows mean.
  4. Pick a column or row (e.g. Product or Anticipate) and discuss which card in that column or row is most important for your work and why. Note, you can assign a card to each participant; this may be particularly useful online.
  5. Repeat for other columns or rows (potentially all of them if you have enough time).

 

Optional follow-up: If there was a card that didn’t seem at all relevant then challenge yourselves: whose problem is that?
 

Project self-assessment

 

This is a more comprehensive exercise which focuses on a specific project. It is best done with other members of the project team, and perhaps a “critical friend”. It is likely to take around an hour.

 

Instructions:

  1. Lay out the five black “Can you agree” cards face-up.
  2. Briefly familiarise yourself with the cards, for example laying them out in a grid reflecting the AREA-Plus framework (see above).
  3. Work through the other cards as a project team, placing each card next to the most appropriate “can you agree” card.
  4. Use the example actions on the cards next to “Quick wins” and “Most important… and we need to agree some actions” to decide what to do next.

 

Sharing RRI Best Practice

 

This exercise allows a diverse group of researchers to reflect on how RRI has been “done” across a number of different projects. It can work well online as well as in person.

 

Instructions:

  1. Lay out the RRI cards in a grid reflecting the AREA-Plus framework (see above).
  2. (Everyone) Think of a good (or bad) example of doing RRI from a previous project (it could be one simple thing you did).
  3. Write a very short summary on a note and place it next to the most relevant card.
  4. Take it in turns to explain your notes.
  5. Find a way to share the best ideas with other researchers.

 

For more information…

Virginia Portillo, Chris Greenhalgh, Peter J. Craigon, and Carolyn Ten Holter. 2023. Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) Prompts and Practice Cards: a Tool to Support Responsible Practice. In Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Trustworthy Autonomous Systems (TAS ’23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 57, 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1145/3597512.3599721
 

Marina Jirotka, Barbara Grimpe, Bernd Stahl, Grace Eden, and Mark Hartswood. 2017. Responsible research and innovation in the digital age. Commun. ACM 60, 5 (May 2017), 62–68. https://doi.org/10.1145/3064940
 

Chris Greenhalgh, Peter Craigon, Virginia Portillo, Liz Dowthwaite, Elvira Perez Vallejos, Helena Webb, Hanne Gesine Wagner, Bernd Carsten Stahl, Carolyn Ten Holter. 2023. Responsible Innovation (RI) Prompts and Practice Cards (version 3.1.1, November 2023). http://doi.org/10.17639/nott.7353 (or version 3.1, http://doi.org/10.17639/nott.7310, or version 2.1, August 2022, http://doi.org/10.17639/nott.7243)