We support responsible research and innovation and societal readiness assessment with designerly and creative methods. 

Using the Design Council's framework for innovation, we work with an Ethics through Design methodology to transform the way technology developers, policy or social innovators think about society and ethics

We follow 3 responsible research innovation principles:

• Art Thinking
  • Using creativity to open spaces for critical reflection
• Engagement
  • Designing capacities for meaningful participation
• Anticipatory Ethics
  • Noticing and addressing ethical tensions oriented toward the future 

The isITethical? Exchange is an innovation research collaboratory that supports, drives, and scaffolds societal R&D capacity for socio-technological innovation, responsive to societal and planetary crises. 

Via knowledge exchange, creative and participatory methods, we aim to make spaces and tools with which designers, engineers, practitioners, communities and policymakers can collectively consider, anticipate, and shape better futures. We do this in multiple ways:

Resources

We provide Key Terms and Ethical, Legal and Social Issues (ELSI) Guidance tailored to IT innovation. And support for decarbonising transport innovations through Societal Readiness Assessment, including a tool for measuring Societal Readiness Levels, currently under development in the SoRADASH project.  

Capacity Building

isITethical has been working with postgraduate Service Design students at UAL for them to experiment with our frameworks and develop projects and services informed by the Ethics through Design principles. For a recent example, see Tzu-Yin Chen's work on ethics of AI here and the SoRA Capacity Mapping Canvas here.

Research

Conducting high impact and original research into fields such as track & trace technologies, emergency 5G broadband networks, artificial intelligence, and medical data practices. See our publications.

Consultancy

Working in collaboration with diverse stakeholders to consult on ethical, legal and social issues of innovations, offering tailored work packages for knowledge exchange projects across Europe.

ELSI Impact Assessments

Designing agile and adaptable methods for industry, practitioners, policy makers and academics to reflect upon with wider impacts of their endeavours.

EtiKits & SoRAPacks

Creating tailored toolkits for innovators and designers, to evaluate their own innovations to make them more ethical, throughout the design process, and improve the societal readiness of innovations.

Practitioner Evaluation

Collaborating with practitioners, including emergency responders in fire, paramedic and police, and medical professionals, to facilitate formative evaluation and social and ethical assessment of new technologies relevant to their fields.