CHERRIES Project aims at improving the framework conditions for responsible healthcare innovations. Before intervening in such complex systems of general economic and domain-specific policies one must take stock of what is already out there, what is working well and what could hinder the proper operation of such systems. The challenge CHERRIES is facing is to integrate into one analytical framework the innovation outputs (product, service, organisational, social innovations), subsystems (preventive, promotive, therapeutic, assistive care) and sources of innovation needs (patients, practitioners, payers, and policymakers). Such a framework will allow to identify actor constellations, innovation dynamics, knowledge bases, innovation modes, and the like.
For this reason, the first category of the Toolbox contains resources useful to frame the scene for RRI and demand-driven innovation pilots in healthcare by mapping the regional innovation systems and learning about regional specifics as a first step for transforming healthcare innovation policy instruments to foster responsible and problem-oriented healthcare policies and practices.
This mapping exercise is also instrumental in pursuing another important element of CHERRIES approach i.e., that of activating a process of change towards a more open, inclusive, and responsive innovation ecosystem in health, by embedding RRI in healthcare. Indeed, implementing Responsible Research and Innovation, which is a context-dependent process, requires mapping and analysis of any given ecosystem, which is a complex system including actors and stakeholders, infrastructures, policies, resources, innovation and RRI practices, trends, and drivers and obstacles.
In this sense, another element to keep in mind is related to the conditions and requirements for a group of organisations to act for promoting and implementing a participatory process of change, requiring the engagement of different stakeholders, including citizens. In fact, in the entire RRI demand-driven innovation approach, stakeholders and partnerships/coalitions of different local actors play a very important role in each step of its implementation. Starting the process of embedding RRI in organisations or in ecosystems requires the establishment and the activation of partnerships and coalitions of actors in core teams, able to steer the process. For this reason, the category includes specific resources on framing the scene, on stakeholders mapping and analysis, on public/private partnerships and territorial coalitions, and on requirements and ways to start a process of change.
Therefore, the resources collected in this category have been grouped into the following four subcategories:
A.1. Mapping territorial ecosystem
A.2. Actors’ mapping and analysis
A.3. Partnerships and territorial coalitions
A.4. How to start the process.