RRI Maturity, and how to move up the levels.
What organisational RRI maturity looks like in practice, how to measure where your institution sits, and what the move from one level to the next actually needs.
Why maturity matters.
RRI maturity is not whether your institution can say the words; it is whether responsible practice is built into how decisions get made. A mature organisation has structures, habits and feedback loops that surface and act on the wider consequences of research as part of business as usual.
A maturity model gives institutions a vocabulary for talking about where they are, what's missing, and what realistic next steps look like. Used well, it stops responsible innovation work from being a series of one-off initiatives.
Five levels.
ORBIT's RRI Maturity model uses five levels. Most UK research institutions sit somewhere between level 2 and level 3 today.
Absent
RRI is not on the agenda. Responsible practice happens through individual conscience rather than institutional design.
Ad hoc
Pockets of activity exist (an EDI policy, an ethics committee, occasional public engagement) but they are not coordinated and rarely change the research itself.
Structured
Responsible practice has policies, named owners and reporting lines. Researchers know who to ask, even if the answer is not always actionable.
Embedded
RRI thinking shapes how research is scoped, funded and evaluated. AREA-style prompts appear inside proposal and progression processes, not as add-ons.
Transformative
The institution treats responsible practice as a competitive advantage. Research direction shifts in response to anticipation and engagement, openly.
How to move up.
The move from each level to the next needs different work. From 1 to 2, you need to start the conversation. From 2 to 3, you need ownership and reporting structure. From 3 to 4, you need to redesign existing processes (proposals, progression panels, ethics) to make responsible thinking native to them. From 4 to 5, you need leadership willing to let RRI conclusions actually change research direction.
Most institutions know which step they are on. The RRI Maturity tool gives a structured way to confirm it and to name the specific gaps. From there, the action plan tool turns the gap analysis into a working programme.
Where does your institution sit?
Run the free self-diagnostic. Twenty minutes, no account needed. We will not contact you about the result.