REconciling sCience, Innovation and Precaution through the Engagement of Stakeholders (RECIPES)
RECIPES aims to reconcile innovation and precaution to foster social awareness and responsibility in the EU in research and innovation.
Main content
In order to fully grasp the complexity and the controversies around the precautionary principle, RECIPES will examine the application of the precautionary principle in international treaties, EU level and five countries. It will also carry out eight case-studies, so as to understand and explain the potential differences in the application of the precautionary principle in the different cases, which reflects the particular context of the case and reasoning behind the decision to invoke the precautionary principle.
RECIPES will develop new tools for the application of the precautionary principle taking into account the innovation principle. It will involve engagement of stakeholders in all stages of the research. It will moreover develop mechanisms for public involvement in research and innovation.
It will develop scenarios for the future application of the precautionary principle and from there, it will co-create a new approach to the precautionary principle and new tolls to help policymakers and other stakeholders to assess risks and uncertainty and allow decisions to be made on a case-by-case basis, responding to the question how to responsibly decide on precaution and innovation.
RECIPES will build effective cooperation between science and society and link scientific excellence with social awareness and responsibility.
Results
- On May 11 2022, the RECIPES project held its dissemination conference Precaution for Responsible Innovation: New Options to Move Forward, where it presented and discussed some of the ideas on how to improve the use of the precautionary principle. The ideas were developed in consultation with several stakeholders at various points during the project period. The conference addressed all groups that participated in the RECIPES project – NGOs, CSOs, SMEs, industry/business, trade unions, policy makers, EU agencies, academia.
- As a last step of the project, the RECIPES team developed a Guidance for future application of the precautionary principle, published in July 2022. The guidance advises on how to deal responsibly with uncertain risks in the development and implementation of technology in the EU. Target groups of this guidance are primarily EU policy makers, EU agencies, and EU policy support organisations and bodies that are concerned with risk regulation or the governance of science, technology and innovation. The guidance documents can be found here.
