In February 2024, Professor Rachel Wynberg attended the kick-off meeting of a new project – RE4GREEN – in Bonn, Germany. Consisting of 15 partners, RE4GREEN is a Horizon Europe project with the overarching goal of supporting the transition to a sustainable economy and society through contributing to an ethics and integrity framework for research and innovation (R&I).

The RE4GREEN project will address environmental challenges by using a bottom-up, network-based approach This means moving beyond the current understanding of research ethics towards a more holistic framework that, besides the protection of research participants, also encompasses environmental and climate issues.

RE4GREEN will provide research integrity guidelines, policy recommendations and training materials for researchers, ethics experts, advisors, and ethics review committees. These outputs will support key ambitions of the “Green Deal” of the European Union, for instance, net zero greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union by 2050. For this to succeed, there is a need for all sectors of society to adapt to global environmental and climate challenges. This includes developing a new ethics and integrity framework for R&I that encompasses environmental and climate ethics, as well as other current challenges, such as the global biodiversity crisis.

RE4GREEN will employ a bottom-up approach, utilising a methodology known as “Social Labs” to incorporate input from diverse stakeholders. Social Labs are constructs which comprise a set of activities by which stakeholders tackle a complex problem together and learn from others who have struggled with similar problems.

Social Labs are not guided by predetermined project plans, but instead, they aim at proactive experimentation, testing and trying out possible strategies, approaches, and solutions at the micro level in order to draw lessons for the systemic level of the addressed societal challenge (Marschalek et al 2022: 422).

Focused on a selection of Horizon Europe’s Clusters (Cluster 1: Health; Cluster 2: Culture, Creativity & Inclusive Society; Cluster 3: Civil Security for Society; Cluster 4: Digital, Industry & Space; Cluster 5: Climate, Energy & Mobility; Cluster 6: Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture & Environment and Missions (see Figure 1), the labs will provide participatory approaches for the identification of ethics and integrity challenges in an intergenerational and gender-sensitive manner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 1. The Horizon Europe Mission Areas

During implementation of the Social Labs, interviews and participatory workshops will be conducted to gauge participant understandings of experiences with:

• the “do no significant harm” principle
• issues of research integrity and benefit sharing
• social and environmental justice
• ecofeminist viewpoints
• and construction of environmental risk assessments.

 

Table 1. The RE4GREEN Social Labs
Social Labs	R&I Area
1 & 7	Health; Culture and Inclusive Society; Civil Security
2	Digital, Industry and Space
3	Climate and Mobility
4	Energy
5 & 8	Food, Bioeconomy, Agriculture and Environment
6	Soil, Waters, Oceans, Natural Resources

 

According to Timmermans et al (2020: 415), Social Labs encompass six main characteristics:

(1) Social Labs offer a space for experimentation with actions to address societal challenges.

(2) This experimentation involves social experiments in real-life settings.

(3) In these real-life settings, the Social Lab brings together various stakeholder groups to actively address the societal challenge.

(4) Social Labs are interdisciplinary, involving a wide range of expertise and backgrounds.

(5) Experimentation with actions on the micro level supports solutions and prototypes on a systemic level and aims to achieve systemic change.

(6) Social Labs have an iterative, agile approach and involve learning cycles, allowing for the evolution of prototypes and solutions over time.

One of the contributions of the Bio-economy Chair will be to set up and run one of two Social Labs focused on Food, Bioeconomy, Agriculture and Environment. Researcher Jaci van Niekerk and post-graduate students affiliated with the Chair will participate actively in the lab.

 

References

Marschalek, I., Blok, V., Bernstein, M., Braun, R., Cohen, J., Hofer, M., Seebacher, L.M., Unterfrauner, E., Daimer, S., Nieminen, M., Vinther Christensen, M. and Kumar Thapa, R. 2022. The social lab as a method for experimental engagement in participatory research. Journal of Responsible Innovation 9(3): 419-442, DOI: 10.1080/23299460.2022.2119003

Timmermans, J., Blok, V., Braun, R., Wesselink, R. and Øjvind Nielsen, R. 2020. Social labs as an inclusive methodology to implement and study social change: the case of responsible research and innovation. Journal of Responsible Innovation 7(3): 410-426, DOI: 10.1080/23299460.2020.1787751