Responsible Help at Home: Establishing Indicators for a Product Assessment Methodology

Abstract

Responsible research and innovation (RRI) seeks to expand the governance of innovations through including social values and beneficial impacts throughout the innovation process. This chapter presents an attempt at addressing how to use insights from RRI in establishing a method for assessment of assisted living technologies. In a current research project, we aim to compare assisted living products developed through an RRI process with such products developed through a different approach. I argue that product assessment is a central part of responsible research and innovation, albeit a less developed part than the procedural dimension of RRI. Based on the literature of assisted living technologies and socio-ethical issues and on a range of stakeholder engagement activities in the research project, I document substantive values and themes that should to be included in an RRI assessment of assisted living technologies . These themes and values are systematised with the aim of aiding in selecting a product assessment methodology.