Deliverable 8.7: Responsible Research & Innovation Final report (RRI) Report 2020-2021 DIAMOND project

Abstract

This Deliverable reports the final Responsible Research & Innovation (RRI) actions carried out during the final (3rd) year of the DIAMOND project and briefly summarises ethics issues over the life of the project. The main ethics processes for DIAMOND and accompanying Guidelines were set up in year one (D8.2 and D8.4) and are as reported in the first annual report (D8.5). Year 2 (2019-2020) activities mainly involved approval of remaining ethical decisions so that empirical research could be carried out (D8.6). This included adapting the research processes to take account of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly from around April 2020. This resulted in: a) the meetings of the ethics board being held online; b) additional applications to allow changes in data gathering due to the effects of the pandemic. Both of these changes resulted in amendments to orginal plans, however the research continued to operate effectively and the ethics revisions did not delay the overall project significantly. In year 3 there were no major ethical issues raised and some additional data collection instruments were given ethical approval. Overall the ethical processes seem to have worked reasonably well for the project and partners