HubIT is a Horizon 2020 project running from 2017-2020 led by the motto “Technology with and for Society”. The consortium consists of 14 organizations from 10 countries: Estonia (coordinator), Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovakia and United Kingdom.

HubIT is a common platform for the whole Horizon 2020 SSH-RRI initiative in ICT. The aim of the project is to build a Hub to activate and improve constructive and co-creative interactions between different stakeholders of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) and ICT across H2020 ICT-related projects and beyond. Furthermore, through SSH-ICT interaction the project aims to implement the principles of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). According to Von Schomberg (2013) “Responsible Research and Innovation is a transparent, interactive process by which societal actors and innovators become mutually responsive to each other with a view to the (ethical) acceptability, sustainability and societal desirability of the innovation process and its marketable products,” (Von Schomberg, 2013, p.19). There are dimensions proposed that emphasise these social needs the best: public engagement, gender equality, science education, open access, ethics, governance and two additional horizontal dimensions, sustainability and social justice.

HubIT consists of the following activities:

1) Mapping of the ICT research and innovation eco-system in gathering and systematizing information on related projects, actors, activities and initiatives and creating of an expert group representing all the project target groups.

2) Developing the European Framework Model for responsible ICT innovation. The Model is a shared vision of a comprehensive set of jointly developed and used definitions, guidelines and tools for enforcing RRI and SSH issues in inclusive ICT research and innovation consisting of:

• The concept of RRI;
• Matrix of the key challenges;
• Tool for assessment of RRI and SSH perspectives in ICT within an organisation;
• Guidelines for RRI in ICT informed by SSH;
• Best practice repository;
• Fact sheets and policy briefs;
• Key measurable success indicators;
• Policy recommendations;
• Virtual matching catalogue;
• HubIT exploitation plan.

3) Building a wide scale HubIT community, sharing the knowledge and matchmaking:

• Virtual matching catalogue and 3 speed-dating events that will bring together the SSH community, practitioners from ICT projects, users and other stakeholders;
• 10 national workshops that will bring together the ICT community, SSH researchers, public sector, policy makers, users and other stakeholders in 10 countries;
• 3 international thematic workshops focusing on selected key challenges;
• 5 target group specific workshops for policy level stakeholders, SSH researchers, ICT industry;
• Annual conferences to share the main findings of the project with a large multidicipilnary audience.

4) Implementing real practical collaborations between ICT developers and SSH researchers leading to inclusive and responsible innovations:

• 3 inclusive hackathons each reflecting the cutting-edge issues elaborated as the result of the thematic workshops;
• Common Ground Camp to develop responsible ICT innovation ideas subject to financing within future H2020 calls, other public or private funding;
• 3 interactive ICT Maker-Labs for ICT and SSH experts to develop innovative solutions for social problems identified within the mapping of the eco-system. The labs will offer technological and professional assistance to SSH experts or communities to design and create practical outputs which will be further used for their SSH research or praxis.

Based on the project results policy recommendations regarding responsible ICT innovation will be formulated. This ensures that lessons and knowledge drawn from the SSH-RRI Horizon 2020 Work Programme 2016-2017 will support projects and programmes targeted to RRI in the future.

As a part of the strategic dissemination and communication plan the HubIT online collaborative Platform will be created where the project information and European Framework Model tools and services can be accessed.

PEDAL Consulting is a partner in the HubIT Project.