Dr. Miklós Lukovics, a lead expert of the First Hungarian Responsible Innovation Association (FHRIA) and also one of the inventors and developers of the CityWalk project, talked about the importance of support given to the developement of walkable cities.

What was your goal with the foundation of the First Hungarian Responsible Innovation Association?

The Association was founded by ten responsible persons who are interested in innovation and new technologies. The founders, many of whom are active researchers, realised that research and development and innovation promise rapid development in a country but social-ethical dilemmas and risks of unpredictable effects are strongly connected to them. Avoiding these effects can mainly happen after the real appearance of the results of the innovation processes, but in many cases intervention at this point is too late and expensive. In order to respond to this challenge, the notion of responsible research and innovation (RRI) emerged as a preventive answer, and recently, RRI has become one of the most interested inter- and multidisciplinary topic internationally. With founding the Association, our main goal was to support the practical introduction of RRI. A civil society organization is more sense of the society’s attitude towards innovation, so our Association would be able to create a bridge between innovation and society.

Why is it important to support the emergence of walkable cities today?

Walkability as a mean of urban development is a special border area of the concept of RRI, which I find extremely important today and in the future. Nowadays cities are key actors in innovation, and urban development has become a crucial element of growth. However, it is getting more noticeable that in bigger cities the so-called disadvantages of urbanization (such as noise and air pollution, overcrowding, etc.) shadow their impacts more strongly. Vehicles require more and more space resulting in a decrease in the quality of living space people need and it is harmful from society’s point of view and the economy as well. Sustainable urban mobility can be a solution, and it has two elements: the well-known environment-friendly public transport and the less-known walkability. The latter comes into the foreground when sustainable city development strategies were prepared. Furthermore, measuring walkability has been realized in some big cities in the US.

How can the FHRIA support the goals of the CityWalk project?

We are proud of our role in the project, because we are one of the inventors and developers of the project. As being one of the knowledge partners in this project, the FHRIA is the leader of WP4. Our role in the CityWalk project is to create a guide and the Walkability Index, an Online Walkability Assessment Tool with the help of external experts of walkability. In addition, we also participate in other Work Packages, too. Our expectations are to harmonize the RRI and urban mobility, disseminate the awareness of RRI among the project partners, and help include RRI in the proposals of our project partners. We hope we can also give useful suggestions during the project implementation.

What are your experiences regarding the kick-off meeting held in Szeged?

The kick off meeting was very successful concerning its professional content: the LP and all WP leaders were professional and gave a very detailed and focused overview of the tasks. I also have to highlight the really friendly atmosphere of the meeting, which gave the basis of the professional work. I am convinced that this project will be reach nice success in the whole Danube Region.