Samenvatting

Ark of Inquiry is a learning platform that uses a computer-based inquiry learning approach to raise youth awareness to Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). It is developed in the context of a large-scale European project (http://www.arkofinquiry.eu) and provides young European citizens (7–18-year-olds) with a pool of engaging inquiry activities. Computer-based inquiry learning has been found effective in many studies and is recommended for science education by several countries all over the world. Several EU policy documents, however, have emphasized the need to increase society’s active involvement in knowledge creation and scientific discussions. Therefore, combining computer-based inquiry learning with the ideas of RRI is required. RRI is a key term in the current policy of the European Commission in the field of science education and in linking science with other domains. RRI is a transparent, interactive process by which societal actors and innovators become mutually responsive to each other with a view on the acceptability, sustainability and societal desirability of the innovation process. In the Ark of Inquiry project, we have developed a pedagogy that helps to link RRI to computer-based inquiry learning. In the current theoretical paper, we introduce this approach and explain how this has been implemented in the Ark of Inquiry project.