A societal readiness tool for responsible product innovation

This paper introduces the Societal Readiness Tool (SRT), an approach that supports actors in product design and innovation in aligning product development with societal needs and expectations. The tool serves two functions. First, it provides guidance for developers, enabling them to navigate the product development process in a manner that builds in ethical, legal and social impact considerations from the very earliest stages. Second, the tool enables developers and other stakeholders to conduct qualitative self-assessments of the societal readiness level of a product. The substantive claim embodied by the tool is that technical and commercial readiness of new products should be supplemented by societal readiness, which is accomplished by embedding concern for ethical, legal and social impacts in product development. • Introduces novel prototype tool to promote and assess societal readiness for new products • Builds on Ethics by Design, expanding it to include legal and social concerns • Enables guidance and self-assessment for developers and other stakeholders