Stakeholder involvement we have been discussing as core element developing concepts such as Responsible Research and Innovation or Values by Design. Yet how can we involve stakeholders, i.e. those affected by innovation and research processes and outcomes – yet not able to influence them. Dr. Almudena de la Mata (CEO of BlockchAIn Intelligence) shares her methodological insights of how to do this. Giving concrete examples, she explains to the host, Dr. Claudia Werker (Delft University of Technology) how to do it to make cities and finance more inclusive. Solutions do not only increase the participation of stakeholders, e.g. by giving women better access to financial services but might also involve nudging them to choose for better solutions by providing a blockchain-based reward system in the case of more inclusive cities.

In health care women are still treated as if they are small men even though they are not. We know very well that women and men suffer from different illnesses, present with different symptoms while suffering of the same illness, and react differently to medication. While there are some best practices scattered across the various disciplines of medical health, an overarching picture of what is needed for inclusive health care for women is missing.

Please listen to one of the women who are about to change this: Prof. Dr. Hanneke Takkenberg, affiliated with both the Erasmus Medical Centre and the Erasmus Business School in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Together with two colleagues she just founded founded the Netherlands Women’s Health Research & Innovation Center. In this episode of our podcast series Inclusive Research and Innovation (IRI) in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), Dr. Claudia Werker (Delft University of Technology), asks her about her engagement for women’s health. Hanneke shares how inclusive health care for women requires more interdisciplinary collaboration between different disciplines in health care and beyond, more and other kinds of data collection as well as close collaboration with patient groups and Femtech firms.

Data is a major challenge for IRI in STEM. Collecting data of diverse individual human beings comes with at least two major challenges. The first one is being in line with the legislation on privacy and data use. This often includes dealing with ethical issues that might arise. The second one is analysing this data in a meaningful way.

In this podcast we meet Dr. Nikolas Dintzer and Dr. Santosh Ilamparuthi, two data stewards of Delft University of Technology. They share their insights on how to collect and analyse (sensitive) data of diverse, sometimes vulnerable, human beings with you and the host, Dr. Claudia Werker. Nikolas and Santosh demonstrate that there is no size fits it all in data collection and analysis. Moreover, they show important and valuable it is to talk to data stewards very early in your research process. In doing so, you can figure out your way towards a compliant, ethical and meaningful data use in your IRI in STEM project.

Policy can be a crucial enabler of IRI in STEM. In this episode, Dr. Frauke Frauke Hoss, policy officer at DG GROW working on policy for internal market and industry at the European Commission, explains how this is possible to the host, Dr. Claudia Werker, Delft University of Technology.

Frauke has been working diligently to make products safer for all kinds of users in the past. One important step has been the study on ⁠the inclusiveness of anthropometrics in European harmonised standards⁠. The results of this study show how diverse people in the EU are. And this matters in various ways.

To give an example, the size of people’s ears is important for producing fitting ear plugs. While larger companies might be able to do their own research on this, the cost of such a study might be prohibitively high for small and medium-sized companies. Moreover, anthropometric data is available for U.S. citizens and – in the absence of EU data - was used for designing masks during the Corona pandemic. Yet EU citizens might have different measurements leading to non-fitting products.

So, this matters for meeting consumers’ needs within the EU and competitiveness of EU firms. Please join us for fascinating insights and examples in the world of product standards.

In this episode we look back at what we learned from our guests in season one of this podcast series on IRI in STEM. TianQing Yen and I discuss what stood out and what is our take-away. We end with a brief peak-review for season two.

David Abbink from Delft University of Technology, the current winner of the prestigious Stevin bonus, shares insights on his research on the future of work. Together with the host, Dr. Claudia Werker from the same university, he has been working together in a vision team on robots at work. This is the last episode of our podcast series on Inclusive Research and Innovation (IRI) in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) before the summer break.

David Abbink is a full professor in haptic human-robot interaction and a mechanical engineer specializing in sensory motor control. He shares his journey from initially focusing on human-robot interaction within traditional engineering disciplines to embracing a more interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach. This approach involves collaborating with social scientists, designers, and industry stakeholders to develop innovative and inclusive technological solutions. David highlights the significance of considering the diverse needs of workers in different industries throughout the research and development process. The goal of technological interventions are not only to improve efficiency but also job satisfaction and inclusivity. He emphasizes the importance of responsible research and innovation in his interdisciplinary work and discusses the challenges of adapting technologies to diverse and challenging work environments.

Needs in mobility differ considerably for people of different age, gender, income, and environmental awareness. In the episode of our podcast series on Inclusive Research and Innovation (IRI) in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Mara Tanelli from Politecnico di Milano shares how to develop inclusive mobility systems for everyone with the host, i.e. Claudia Werker from Delft University of Technology. In particular, Mara discusses how researchers can utilize data to construct these systems by focusing on technology adoption drivers, building social networks, and designing equitable policies within her data-driven framework. She highlights the importance of data privacy and the value of interdisciplinary collaboration with social scientists and policymakers to create inclusive technologies.   

Mara Tanelli combines her tasks as a full professor in Automatic Control at Politecnico Milano with being her rector’s delegate for diversity and inclusion. Mara and Claudia are both members of the IDEA League’s working group on Gendered and Inclusive Research and Innovation. In this network, they have been working on how to make inclusive research and innovation the gold standard in STEM research and innovation.

How can researchers make the design of medical devices more inclusive? Measuring characteristics of patients correctly can make all the different, e.g. in surgery, because it improves effectiveness of outcomes.

In this episode of our podcast series on Inclusive Research and Innovation (IRI) in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), Prof. Dr. Domenico Della Volpe from Geneva University shares insights on his research with the host, Dr. Claudia Werker from Delft University of Technology. Both have been working on the @ATTRACT project: Domenico on the engineering side and Claudia on the business side of the project.

Dominico Della Volpe is a particle physicist with a keen interest in Radio-Guided Surgery (RGS) in nuclear medicine. In this podcast, he shares his journey developing a new medical device, POSICS-2, for tumor treatment through RGS, highlighting how the diverse needs of individuals influence the final design of such devices. Domenico stresses both the vital role of interdisciplinary collaboration and the need to address unconscious biases in research to make Inclusive Research and Innovation in STEM happen.

Learn more about the development of POSICS-2 tumour treatment medical device within the ATTRACT project:

https://phase2.attract-eu.com/projects/posics-2/

We are halfway through our first season and thought it was time to introduce the host of the podcast series Inclusive Research and Innovation (IRI) in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)! In this special mini-episode, research assistant Tian Qing Yen interviews the host of the series Dr. Claudia Werker from Delft University of Technology. Claudia explains how she became interested in IRI in STEM and shares some of the challenges and opportunities she has faced in both doing research on and promoting IRI in STEM.

Speech recognition and processing tools are everywhere – from speech-to-text transcription, to voice commands on your phone, to filtering background noise in video calls. However, many automatic speech recognition systems do not perform as well with diverse speakers, i.e. people with an accent, with a speech impediment, or even young or old speakers. Adjusting this technology to recognize different ways of speaking has the potential to make these systems and the tools that depend on them more accessible and inclusive. What challenges and opportunities are there for developing and using more inclusive speech recognition and processing?

In this episode of our podcast series Inclusive Research and Innovation (IRI) in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, Dr. Claudia Werker from Delft University of Technology talks to her colleague Dr. Odette Scharenborg from the same university. Dr. Scharenborg’s research looks at how to improve speech recognition systems for non-standard speakers. She explains that while acquiring and processing the varied data she needs for her work is challenging, it has also led to opportunities to connect with diverse speakers, to advocate for them, and to help them practically navigate using speech recognition tools.

Learn more about Dr. Scharenborg's research: