I truly appreciated the structure and clarity of Responsible Innovation in Health, a call to action to create health solutions that are groundbreaking, while also inclusive and sustainable. Thanks to the thoughtful work of its editors, Pascale Lehoux, Lysanne Rivard, and Hudson P. Silva, this book serves as a hands-on guide useful for academics and practitioners, helping them to understand responsible innovation and to implement it in practice. The literature has long debated responsible innovation, often critiquing it as being too normative and detached from real-world application (Ribeiro et al. 2018; Thapa et al. 2019; Blok et al. 2015). Scholars have asked for research on how it may be applied, the dilemmas and challenges it presents, as well as for the benefits for practitioners (Blok et al. 2015; Iakovleva et al. 2019, 2024). I firmly believe that only concepts with real-world relevance will stand the test of time. Responsible Innovation in Health is a good example of how academic research can be transformed into actionable insights. In today's healthcare landscape, advancements in technology and knowledge go hand in hand with growing complexities in treatment, an aging population demanding more resources, and persistent inequalities in access to essential healthcare services. As reliance on technology and scientific progress continues to increase (Bessant et al. 2024), the solutions need to be designed for and are used by people—patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals alike, a perspective nicely supported in this book. To ensure that innovations are delivered responsibly, the authors argue in favor of inclusivity, a perspective I largely support. Growing evidence confirms that inclusion enhances innovation outcomes by allowing to anticipate and mitigate negative externalities—an idea that aligns with the very core of responsible innovation (Owen et al. 2013; Naughton et al. 2023). This book explores the pathway of responsible innovation, guiding readers from idea generation to implementation and assessment. It has three main parts and allows readers to navigate the content efficiently, with each chapter ending with summary points that facilitate quick reference and fast-tracked learning. The first part of the book introduces the concepts needed to understand responsible innovation. It highlights the need to drive innovation in healthcare and outlines the journey from identifying a problem to developing a solution in a responsible manner. The discussion is supported with useful, real-world examples that demonstrate how responsible innovation principles can be effectively applied across different contexts, for example, a digital platform ecosystem for water collection in India or various stakeholder engagement methods. A key contribution of this part is the Responsible Design Compass for healthcare innovators. The authors effectively communicate the idea of a continuum rather than a dichotomy for each dimension of the compass, for example, balancing the perspectives of end users and experts rather than viewing them as opposing forces. By so doing, they reinforce the book's predominant argument that innovation is about solving problems in a way that carefully considers ethical, social, and environmental implications. The second part of the book is a toolbox to implement responsible innovation. For practitioners, this section is particularly valuable, as it provides an overview of different innovation management methods. Implementing responsible innovation is perceived as a challenge—organizations must navigate trade-offs between responsibility and strategic decision-making. The authors reflect on the delicate balance between responsible innovation and economic realities, in alignment with previous studies (Brand and Blok 2019; Gurzawska 2021). In my opinion, this part would have been even more effective if storytelling and real-world examples had been incorporated, as seen earlier in the book. That said, all the methods are relevant contributions. Additionally, this second part introduces a new assessment tool for responsible innovation, aimed to enable healthcare organizations to evaluate their own practices. In my view, this is one of the book's most valuable contributions. I admire the authors' courage in offering this tool to the world. While some may critique its relative complexity in measurement—since it requires careful evaluation of organizational activities—it certainly provides a big-picture perspective for those determined to embed responsibility into their innovations. While I appreciate the authors' effort in developing and validating this tool, a question surfaced in my mind: will organizations recognize they have a real need to apply it? Tools commonly found in innovation management literature, for example, Business Model Canvas or House of Quality, have been widely adopted due to an immediate and pressing need for improvement. Other tools failed, as their successful application required sustained commitment that organizations were not willing to provide. I worry that the Responsibility Assessment Tool may fall into the latter category, meaning that only organizations with a pre-existing strong awareness of responsibility will be inclined to use it. The Responsibility Assessment Tool could nonetheless be used to address specific, immediate organizational challenges. We need detailed methods to tackle the question of how inclusion should be implemented. Who should be involved, at what stage of development, and through which processes? Who is responsible for ensuring that stakeholder perspectives are meaningfully integrated? What role can intermediary platforms play in embedding user and stakeholder perspectives into innovation to maximize societal impact? All these are critical questions that remain unanswered (Silva et al. 2019; Iakovleva et al. 2024). The final part of the book shifts the focus to the ecosystem that supports responsible innovation. The authors discuss the role of intermediary platforms, for example, incubators, technology transfer offices, or innovation hubs, in helping organizations to implement responsible innovation. They underline that systemic change is necessary, as relying solely on individual innovators is not enough, in line with the recent literature (Iakovleva, Oftedal, and Bessant 2021; Iakovleva, Bessant, et al. 2021; Huang et al. 2024), and there is a clear need to include responsibility into regional and national policies. The book ends with a reflection on a serious dilemma: while financial sustainability is essential for innovation to thrive, it should not come at the expense of ethical and social considerations. In line with broader academic debates on balancing idealistic values with the realities of competitive markets (Blok and Lemmens 2015; Brand and Blok 2019; Oftedal et al. 2019; Lubberink et al. 2017), the authors defend a nuanced approach that recognizes both the need for economic viability and the importance of fostering responsible, inclusive innovation in healthcare. I highly appreciate the effort made in Responsible Innovation in Health to introduce the concept of responsible innovation and provide a practical framework for its implementation. The result is valuable for healthcare innovators, practitioners, patient organizations, and the broader community. The book delivers a clear message and provides tools to address complexity, reduce inequalities in the availability and affordability of healthcare innovations, and ensure their wider societal relevance. I hope it will be used by different readers to strengthen responsible innovation in healthcare and beyond. The author has nothing to report. The author declares no conflicts of interest. Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.
Tatiana Iakovleva (Thu,) studied this question.