De Proeffabriek – Consultancy for Responsible Innovation

De Proeffabriek (DPF) is a consultancy for responsible innovation, registered as an SME in the Netherlands. DPF focuses on social value creation in research and innovation: we work with researchers, innovators and policy makers to realise social and environmental benefits in addition to economic gain.

The Dutch word Proeffabriek means ‘pilot factory’ or ‘pilot plant’. Much like a pilot plant is used in chemistry to test new production technologies on a pre-commercial scale, DPF was established in 2010 to scale up insights from the social sciences and humanities. We explore the value of social research to enhance the responsiveness of research and innovation, including a concern for people and the environment at the earliest stages of innovation.

Integrating societal considerations in nanotechnology risk governance

During the 9th Nano Conference on 13 Nov 2020, Daan Schuurbiers argued that the effective integration of societal considerations is an essential condition for the success of the nanotechnology risk governance framework that is currently being developed by three NMBP-13 projects: NANORIGO, Gov4Nano and RiskGONE. The transcript of that talk is here: Integrating societal considerations in nanotechnology risk governance (pdf on Zenodo).

Learning from Safer Chemicals for Safe-by-Design?

From August 2018 – March 2019, DPF has carried out a short-term research project commissioned by The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) on safer chemicals. This brief exploration of ‘the world of safer chemicals’ was a follow-up of an earlier study by DPF that looked into green chemisty, and complements the findings of a study on substitution by Kees Le Blansch of Bureau KLB. The final report: Learning from Safer Chemicals for Safe-by-Design? (pdf, in Dutch) presents the research findings and provides suggestions to strengthen the role of Safe-by-Design in research and innovation policy.

GoNano

DPF is a partner in the EU-funded GoNano project. GoNano enables co-creation between citizens, civil society organisations, industry, researchers and policy makers across Europe to align future nanotechnologies with societal needs and concerns. GoNano aims to demonstrate how researchers can work with publics and professional stakeholders to create novel suggestions for future nanotechnology products. The project started in September 2017 and will run for three years.

DPF leads the co-creation activities with professional stakeholders and supports project communication. We will also contribute to the review of the state of the art in co-creation, training activities and policy outreach.

For more information, see: gonano-project.eu.