The term Responsible Research and Innovation has recently gained currency, as it has been designated to be a key-term in the European research framework Horizon 2020. At the level of European research policy, Responsible Research and Innovation can be viewed as an attempt to reach a broader vision of research and innovation as a public good. The current academic debate may be fairly enriched by considering the role that phronesis may have for RRI. Specifically, in this paper we argue that (...) the current debate might be fruitfully enriched by making a categorial shift. Such a categorial shift involves moving away from the temptation to interpret responsible research and innovation in a technocratic way towards a more pluralistic vision that is rooted in the idea of phronesis. In the present context phronesis points the attention to the cultivation and nurturement of the researcher’s formation as a type of engagement with the actual practice of researching, a practice in which researchers are called to apply judgment and exercise discretion in specific and often unique situations without the re-assuring viewpoint of the technician. (shrink)

This paper presents scientists’ understanding of their roles in society and corresponding responsibilities. It discusses the researchers’ perspective against the background of the contemporary literature on scientific responsibility in the social sciences and philosophy and proposes a heuristic that improves the understanding of the complexity of scientific responsibility. The study is based on qualitative interviews with senior scientists. The presented results show what researchers themselves see as their responsibilities, how they assume them, and what challenges they perceive with respect to (...) their responsibilities. Regarding the latter, the interviewed researchers highlight those aspects of responsibility that go beyond the expertise of their professional role, and thus cannot be carried by scientists alone. For example, scientists alone cannot determine the general direction science takes, or the useful application of their research. The interviewed researchers describe those challenges as responsibilities that must be shared across different societal groups. In the theoretical literature, responsibility has been described as a relation between an actor (who), the action for which someone is responsible (what), and the normative framework against which someone is responsible (why). We will draw on this concept of “relational responsibility” to identify the various actors, normative frameworks, and actions relevant to scientific responsibility. This will serve as a heuristic tool to help identify the entanglement of responsibilities spread across several societal groups. (shrink)