Responsible research and innovation in practice: an exploratory assessment of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in a Nanomedicine Project

While originally intended to transform research and innovation practice, the concept of responsible research and innovation (RRI) has largely remained a theoretical, policy-oriented construct, thereby engendering a perception that RRI indicators are very different from organizational or business indicators. As there is currently limited experience with RRI in businesses, in an attempt to gain more insights into RRI in practice, this paper focuses on an exploratory assessment of key performance indicators (KPIs) in a nanomedicine project. Based on correspondence analysis, we visually demonstrate associations among KPIs of RRI dimensions and of organizational ongoing R&D dimensions implying that these two indicators are not entirely different from each other and may even be potentially aligned. This finding may stimulate the motives of the RRI uptake in practice.