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Since the 1990s, changing ways of producing and circulating knowledge have been accompanied by debates that diagnose and call for change in the relationship between science, society, politics, and innovation. Most recently in Europe, some of these debates emphasize the concept of responsible research and innovation (RRI). In this paper, we present a comparative analysis of different territorial RRI-pilots within the Horizon 2020-funded project TRANSFORM. In these pilots, different translations of RRI become visible. RRI (1) gets translated as participatory and deliberative modes of innovation governance aimed at transformative change, (2) takes the shape of citizen science projects; and (3) is enacted as participatory agenda setting and (plans for a) citizen assembly. We argue that it is the often-invisible work of establishing, nurturing, and caring for relationships within the territorial R&I ecosystems – what can the thought of as ongoing “maintenance work” – that creates the conditions for more responsive modes of innovation governance, and thus a shift towards transformative change in innovation policy. Through describing these translations and the related practices we will direct attention to the potential, challenges, and systemic barriers of this kind of work.

IntroductionBy a series of calls within the Horizon 2020 framework programme, the EU funded projects intended to deploy Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) at a territorial level, in regional research and innovation ecosystems. This paper presents efforts to document and evaluate the achievements in TRANSFORM, one of these projects.MethodsEvaluative inquiry and theoretical reasoning.ResultsNoting the need for a general principle to be interpreted, adapted and translated in order to be rendered meaningful at a local level, we studied precisely these multiple territorial translations of RRI, the organizational and institutional orderings with which they co-emerge and the challenges that come with these translations. An important shared feature is that RRI work does not start from zero, but rather builds on pre-existing relationships and repertoires of collaboration. The RRI project is hence a way to continue ongoing work and follow pre-set purposes, aims and objectives, as a form of “maintenance work”. In this very human sense, RRI is deployed with a logic of care in the regional context, while the Horizon 2020 calls and proposals above all are formulated in a logic of choice, to be assessed by indicators.DiscussionWe warn against undue standardization of RRI by toolification and use of quantitative indicators, and recommend that RRI performance is monitored by methods of evaluative inquiry.

Increasing numbers of scholars and practitioners appeal to procedural theories of ‘co-production’ as they work to transform climate science into climate services. Most work in this direction theorises co-production as an ‘iterative and interactive’ process between climate service providers and users, with success measured mainly in terms of the usefulness and usability of the information product for the user. But notwithstanding these first important steps, this perspective paper argues that the current study of climate service co-production is too narrowly framed, and fails to properly engage with the broad and rich literature that conceives of co-production processes in a diversity of ways. The authors suggest a fresh look on co-production as a process best examined simultaneously from several complimentary perspectives, with reference to recent work reconceptualising co-production as an eight-sided ‘prism’. Using an illustrative example of climate services developed to predict and visualise future flooding in the municipality of Voss, in Norway, the paper demonstrates how this prism concept of co-production can enable a more comprehensive view on co-production as a multi-faceted phenomenon, improve mutual understanding among actors and, ultimately, help design climate services that are better tailored for climate change responses in particular contexts. Keywords: Climate services, Co-production, Evaluation, Voss