Ready, Set, Go: Let’s RRIstart!

Ready, Set, Go: Let’s RRIstart! 

As the voice of European angel investors we realised the importance of impact investing very early: Almost ten years ago we created the EBAN Impact Community –  a very active group of angels from all over Europe raising awareness about impact investing. Being part of RRIstart allows us to double down on our commitment to keep on pioneering impact investing for entrepreneurs and angels in meaningful ways! Through this EU project, we have helped develop the first-ever startup model for Responsible Research and Innovation, or  RRIstart for short. Ready to RRIstart this journey with us?

Nowadays, startups and angels can not always follow existing RRI principles and indicators. The compatibility of these models with smaller companies is limited since they are tailored mostly for large organizations. This is an obstacle for impact investors as startups occupy an increasingly important role in the investment ecosystem. To deal with this limitation, RRIstart is creating a novel RRI model for startups blended with RRI-based impact investment indicators.

That way impact investing will become accessible not only to large corporations but also to the start-up community, as well as all four major actors in the system of the Quadruple Helix Model of innovation (Industry, Academia, Society, and Policy).

We support the development of this new model as a gold standard to facilitate RRI-based startups. It will create new market opportunities, and make EU startups and investors more RRI-aware. With this project we are also paving the way for more startups using the RRI model that currently might be inaccessible to them. Ten years after the creation of the EBAN Impact Community we are still making good on our promise to advance and promote impact investing!

About RRIStart

RRIstart is an Horizon2020 Project that responds to the EU efforts to foster impact investment (investment that delivers social, environmental and economic benefits) by developing an innovative RRI-based model for startups, complemented by an RRI-based impact investment indicator list in a multi-stakeholder (beyond quadruple helix) context. Through RRIstart, the consortium aims to demonstrate the value of RRI for the STEM entrepreneurship ecosystem. At the moment, startups and investors do not adopt existing RRI principles and indicators due to the limited compatibility of existing RRI models (tailored mostly for large organizations). Nevertheless, by adopting a lean/agile approach to RRI embedment, RRIstart proposes a novel RRI model for startups blended with novel RRI-based impact investment indicators. RRIstart tests the developed innovation through a translational piloting approach (from lab to market). Three pilots will be organized (on environmentally sustainable startups from Northern Europe, 3D printing & advanced materials in Italy and bioeconomy (agrifood) in Greece). In each pilot, extended quadruple helix actors will be involved in order to assess the feasibility of embedding RRI in startups and to facilitate (public and private) impact investment through the RRI-based indicator set.

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI ROMA LA SAPIENZA
• WAGENINGEN UNIVERSITY
• YET NGO
• SEERC
• KNOWLEDGE AND
• EBAN – European Business Angel Network

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101005937. More information about the project can be found here: https://rristart.eu/