Taking knowledge production seriously in responsible research and innovation (original) (raw)
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Responsible research and innovation: From science in society to science for society, with society
2012
The term responsible (research and) innovation has gained increasing policy relevance in the last two years, in particular within the European Commission's Science in Society programme, framed within the EU Horizon 2020 initiative. We provide a brief historical overview of the concept, and identify three distinct features that are emerging from associated discourses. The first is an emphasis on the democratic governance of the purposes of research and innovation, steering these towards the 'right impacts' that are anchored in societal values. The second focuses on responsiveness, emphasising the institutionalisation and integration of established approaches of anticipation, reflection and deliberation in and around research and innovation in such a way that it influences the direction of these and associated policy. The third concerns the framing of the concept of responsibility itself in the context of research and innovation as collective activities with uncertain and unpredictable consequences. We conclude by reflecting on the motivations for responsible innovation itself, asserting that it must be conducted for substantive and normative reasons, rather than an instrumental approach to expedite the meeting of pre-defined policy goals.
SpringerBriefs in Research and Innovation Governance, 2018
Responsible research and innovation (RRI) has emerged in recent years, especially in Europe, as a science policy framework that (a) seeks to align technological innovation with broader social values and (b) supports institutional decisions concerning the goals and trajectories of research and innovation under conditions of uncertainty, ambiguity and ignorance. Rather than relying simply on consumer choice and market mechanisms on the one hand, or risk-based regulation on the other, RRI seeks to determine what constitute the goals, purposes and trajectories of (and alternatives to) technoscience and innovation, and thus the directions towards which these should be oriented, suggesting that these should be underpinned by shared public values. In addition to this overall philosophy of RRI, the European Commission has focused on five constituent policy keys (sometimes called pillars) of RRI that have their historical roots in the Science-in-Society programme; namely societal engagement, gender in research, open access, science education, and ethics. Action on these keys is seen as integral to an RRI approach and to Europe's ability to respond to societal challenges. A further issue in the European context concerns how to 'federate' the RRI community in the EU and promote institutional changes to foster RRI in research institutions (a topic addressed at the European Commission RRI conference in Rome November 2014). This implies engaging stakeholders, research organisations, universities, funding agencies and public authorities in RRI.
Responsible Research and Innovation as a governance paradigm: what is new?
This chapter frames RRI as an emerging governance approach in the EU regulatory context. We argue that reference to fundamental rights makes RRI a distinctive approach to responsibility compared to other existing paradigms and that human rights, in particular those laid down in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, are not necessarily a constraint but can instead be a catalyst of innovation. Eventually we maintain that a governance framework based on the complementarity between legal norms and voluntary commitments might successfully combine the respect of fundamental rights with the openness and flexibility of the innovation process. Published in: Navigating Towards Shared Responsibility in Research and Innovation. Approach, Process and Results of the Res-AGorA Project, Karlsruhe 2016. Editors: Ralf Lindner, Stefan Kuhlmann, Sally Randles, Bjørn Bedsted, Guido Gorgoni, Erich Griessler, Allison Loconto, Niels Mejlgaard
Responsible research and innovation: coming to grips with an ambitious concept
Synthese
This Introduction to the Special Issue on "Responsible Research and Innovation" (RRI) outlines features of the philosophical debate about the concepts involved and summarizes the papers assembled in this issue. The topic of RRI is widely discussed in science studies and has made its way into science policy. This SI is intended to make the contributions of philosophers of science more visible. The philosophically relevant parts of the field concern, among others, the processes of public participation in science and their impact on the knowledge produced, the notion of justified public trust in science, and the idea of research pursued for the common good. Such topics bring social procedures together with epistemic and ethical considerations and thus raise philosophical challenges. RRI is subject to the tension between committing research to creating knowledge in harmony with public expectations, on the one hand, while not complying with public wishful thinking, on the other. RRI embodies a friction between serving people's aspirations and correcting people's expectations. This special issue is intended to explore the narrow pathway left between these conflicting demands.
Relations
In last years, the European Commission has promoted an approach that seeks to anticipate and assess potential implications and societal expectations with regard to research and innovation, with the aim to foster the "design of inclusive and sustainable research and innovation". The approach, called Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), has become a crosscutting theme of Horizon 2020, the most important European research funding system. RRI has its roots in a longstanding debate on the sense of techno-scientific innovation and its power to produce both benefits and harm, producing risks, arising ethical dilemmas and controversial questions. It proposes a framework for governing the innovation process asking all actors to become mutually responsible and responsive in order to reach "socially desirable" and "acceptable" innovation goals. Years after its emergence as a policy concept, studies and reports have evaluated the efforts to mainstream RRI in the national policies, revealing that questions still remain open to discussion. In this paper we will give a brief overview of RRI approach, what it is, why and how it emerged and developed within the policy discourse in the European context. We will then review some key lessons concerning opportunities and challenges embedded in this approach, focusing on the role of science.
In European science and technology policy, various styles have been developed and institutionalised to govern the ethical challenges of science and technology innovations. In this paper, we give an account of the most dominant styles of the past 30 years, particularly in Europe, seeking to show their specific merits and problems. We focus on three styles of governance: a technocratic style, an applied ethics style, and a public participation style. We discuss their merits and deficits, and use this analysis to assess the potential of the recently established governance approach of ‘Responsible Research and Innovation’ (RRI). Based on this analysis, we reflect on the current shaping of RRI in terms of ‘doing governance’. Keywords: Policy; Governance of S&T; Technocracy; Public participation; Ethics expertise; ELSA/ELSI; RRI; New and emerging science & technology
Responsible research and innovation: hopes and fears in the scientific community in Europe
Journal of Responsible Innovation
We conducted interviews among some 80 researchers and research executives on their understanding of and their attitudes toward 'Responsible Research and Innovation' (RRI). The relevant notion of RRI concerns granting influence on research projects to the general public and stakeholders ('science with society'), for one, or focusing research on the common good ('science for society'), for another. We identified a welcoming attitude regarding RRI in the scientific community, but also worries that should be heeded in any effort to implement RRI. Concerns arise with respect to fears of ignorance and bias of societal agents, the loss of the autonomy of science, the neglect of basic research by RRI procedures, the difficulty to anticipate research outcomes and their social impact as well as the additional expenditure required by engaging with societal actors. Such worries provide information about obstacles in the scientific community and thus suggest ways of structuring acceptable RRI schemes.
Responsible Research and Innovation: a Composite and Ambitious Notion
2016
This Introduction to the Special Issue on "Responsible Research and Innovation" (RRI) outlines features of the philosophical debate about the concepts involved and summarizes the papers assembled in this issue. The topic of RRI is widely discussed in science studies and has made its way into science policy. This SI is intended to make the contributions of philosophers of science more visible. The philosophically relevant parts of the field concern, among others, the processes of public participation in science and their impact on the knowledge produced, the notion of justified public trust in science, and the idea of research pursued for the common good. Such topics bring social procedures together with epistemic and ethical considerations and thus raise philosophical challenges. RRI is subject to the tension between committing research to creating knowledge in harmony with public expectations, on the one hand, while not complying with public wishful thinking, on the other. RRI embodies a friction between serving people's aspirations and correcting people's expectations. This special issue is intended to explore the narrow pathway left between these conflicting demands.
A Mobilising Concept? Unpacking Academic Representations of Responsible Research and Innovation
This paper makes a plea for more reflexive attempts to develop and anchor the emerging concept of responsible research and innovation (RRI). RRI has recently emerged as a buzzword in science policy, becoming a focus of concerted experimentation in many academic circles. Its performative capacity means that it is able to mobilise resources and spaces despite no common understanding of what it is or should be 'made of'. In order to support reflection and practice amongst those who are interested in and using the concept, this paper unpacks understandings of RRI across a multidisciplinary body of peer-reviewed literature. Our analysis focuses on three key dimensions of RRI (motivations, theoretical conceptualisations and translations into practice) that remain particularly opaque. A total of 48 publications were selected through a systematic literature search and their content was qualitatively analysed. Across the literature, RRI is portrayed as a concept that embeds numerous features of existing approaches to govern and assess emerging technologies. Our analysis suggests that its greatest potential may be in its ability to unify and provide political momentum to a wide range of long-articulated ethical and policy issues. At the same time, RRI's dynamism and resulting complexity may represent its greatest challenge. Further clarification on what RRI has to offer in practice—beyond what has been offered to date—is still needed, as well as more explicit engagement with research and institutional cultures of responsibility. Such
Innovating innovation policy: the emergence of ‘Responsible Research and Innovation’
Journal of Responsible Innovation, 2015
Within the policy structures of the European Union (EU), the concept of ‘Responsible Research and Innovation’ (RRI) appears to have a very specific emergence point, via a workshop for invited experts hosted by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation in May 2011. Through a textual analysis of EU documents, this paper will explore the processes through which RRI has been incorporated into Horizon 2020 as a policy framework for the European Research Area which promises that technological innovation will be shaped towards social goods. It concludes by discussing some of the tensions between RRI and policies emanating from other EU institutions, highlighting areas which may impede RRI’s progress towards its goals.