Building on recent theories ofscience in society, such as that provided bythe `Mode 2' framework, this paper argues thatgovernments should reconsider existingrelations among decision-makers, experts, andcitizens in the management of technology.Policy-makers need a set of ` technologies ofhumility' for systematically assessing theunknown and the uncertain. Appropriate focalpoints for such modest assessments are framing,vulnerability, distribution, and learning.

The notion of Responsible Research and Innovation has increasingly attracted attention in the academic literature. Up until now, however, the literature has focused on clarifying the principles for which research and innovation are responsible and on examining the conditions that account for managing them responsibly. Little attention has been reserved to exploring the political-economic context in which the notion of RRI has become progressively more prominent. This article tries to address this aspect and suggests some preliminary considerations on the connections (...) between the specific understanding of responsibility in RRI and the framing of responsibility in what has been synthetically defined as ‘neoliberalism’. To do so, we try to illustrate how the idea of responsibility has evolved over time so that the specific characteristics of RRI can be better highlighted. These characteristics will then be discussed against the features of neoliberalism and its understanding of responsibility. Eventually, we reaffirm a view of RRI centred on fundamental rights as a possible point of departure between these two perspectives on responsibility. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to provide a discussion on the definitions and conceptual dimensions of Responsible Research and Innovation based on findings from the literature. In the study, the outcomes of a literature review of 235 RRI-related articles were presented. The articles were selected from the EBSCO and Google Scholar databases regarding the definitions and dimensions of RRI. The results of the study indicated that while administrative definitions were widely quoted in the reviewed literature, they were not substantially (...) further elaborated. Academic definitions were mostly derived from the institutional definitions; however, more empirical studies should be conducted in order to give a broader empirical basis to the development of the concept. In the current study, four distinct conceptual dimensions of RRI that appeared in the reviewed literature were brought out: inclusion, anticipation, responsiveness and reflexivity. Two emerging conceptual dimensions were also added: sustainability and care. (shrink)

In this essay, I will investigate the implications of human enhancement for personal identity and assess likely social and ethical consequences of these changes. Human enhancement, also called human augmentation, is an emerging field within medicine and bioengineering that aims to develop technologies and techniques for overcoming current limitations of human cognitive and physical abilities (Naam, 2004; Wilsdon and Miller, 2006; Garreau, 2005; Parens, 1998; Agar, 2004). Technologies developed in this field are called human enhancement technologies (HETs). HETs rely on (...) advances in genetic engineering, pharmacology, bioengineering, cybernetics and nanotechnology. In these fields, it is becoming possible to develop techniques that improve human functions beyond a normal range. The envisioned applications are limitless, and include the enhancement of human traits like muscular strength, endurance, vision, intelligence, mood and personality. (shrink)

Two features characterize new and emerging technosciences. The first one is the production of peculiar ontologies. The human agent is confronted with a biophysical world the contingent, indeterminate character of which does not hamper but expands the scope of purposeful action. Uncertainty is increasingly regarded as a resource for an expanding will rather than a drawback for a disoriented agent. The second feature is that ethics is increasingly considered as the core regulatory means of this messy, ever-changing world. The ambivalences (...) of the ethical government of contingent assemblages are discussed by focusing on the governmentality perspective. The latter helps to make sense of the regulatory alliance between ethics and technoscience. A reflection on Foucault’s account of ethics shows that the emancipatory role of the latter is today hampered by its embroilment with the instrumental reason it aims to govern, nor can older models of ethical commitment find any straightforward application. Mapping the issue in terms of mutual constitution of power, potentiality and possibility gives salience to a particular question: what we are able not to do. (shrink)

Among the various experiments in ‘new governance’, the model of Responsible Research and Innovation is emerging in the European landscape as quite promising. Up to now, there have been two versions of RRI: a socio-empirical version which tends to underline the role of democratic processes aimed at identifying values on which governance needs to be anchored and a normative version which stresses the role of EU goals as ‘normative anchor points’ of both governance strategies and policy making. Both versions are (...) unsatisfactory. The first since it suggests movable anchorage which could clash with prefixed values, such as individual rights. The second since it does not safeguard fundamental rights in the process of balancing ‘anchor points’. This result is counterintuitive because it exposes governance to the risk of facing adverse court decisions in the defense of individual rights, thus losing its anticipative attitude. In order to avoid this outcome, the paper argues that it is only through better integration between the system of human rights and that of EU fundamental rights that the anticipative feature of RRI can be preserved. (shrink)

The present volume elucidates the scope of responsibility in science and technology governance by way of assimilating insights gleaned from sociological theory and STS and by investigating the ways in which responsibility unfolds in social processes. Drawing on these theoretical perspectives, the volume goes on to review a 'heuristic model' of responsibility. Such a model provides a simple, tentative, though no less coherent analytical framework for further examining the idea of responsibility, its transformations, configurations and contradictions. This concise but insightful (...) and intellectually rich book offers a new departure in the growing corpus on responsible research and innovation. Scholars of both sociology and science and technology studies will be informed, and at times captivated, by the depth and clarity of argument provided by the authors and by its implications for the responsible governance of science and technology. Phil Macnaghten, Professor of Technology and International Development, Wageningen University, The Netherlands In this highly recommendable book, the authors make a convincing case for bringing social theory into the evolving discussion about responsibility in the context of science and technology. Their argument is stringently developed into an inspiring and promising heuristic framework for analysing responsibility. The book is a model of clarity and deserves a broad audience in science and technology studies, social theory, and beyond. Niels Mejlgaard, Centre Director, Danish Centre for Studies in Research and Research Policy, Aarhus University, Denmark Authors Simone Arnaldi is post-doctoral research fellow in sociology at the University of Padua, Italy. Luca Bianchi is adjunct professor of sociology at the University of Trieste, Italy. (shrink)

The paper addresses charges of risk and loss aversion as well as of irrationality directed against the precautionary principle, by providing an epistemic analysis of its specific role in the safety law system. In particular, I contend that: 1) risk aversion is not a form of irrational or biased behaviour; 2) both risk and loss aversion regard the form of the utility function, whereas PP rather regards the information on which to base the decision; 3) thus PP has formally nothing (...) to do with risk or loss aversion but rather with risk awareness; 4) PP removes a fictional construct in the legal system, according to which any hazard should be ignored and denied until it is scientifically proven; 5) the quandary originates in the tension between current methods of evidence evaluation, and the logic underlying PP which demands for a probabilistic epistemology. (shrink)

Modern society is characterised by rapid technological development that is often socially controversial and plagued by extensive scientific uncertainty concerning its socio-ecological impacts. Within this context, the concept of ‘responsible research and innovation’ is currently rising to prominence in international discourse concerning science and technology governance. As this emerging concept of RRI begins to be enacted through instruments, approaches, and initiatives, it is valuable to explore what it is coming to mean for and in practice. In this paper we draw (...) attention to a realm that is often backgrounded in the current discussions of RRI but which has a highly significant impact on scientific research, innovation and policy—namely, the interstitial space of international standardization. Drawing on the case of nanoscale sciences and technologies to make our argument, we present examples of how international standards are already entangled in the development of RRI and yet, how the process of international standardization itself largely fails to embody the norms proposed as characterizing RRI. We suggest that although current models for RRI provide a promising attempt to make research and innovation more responsive to societal needs, ethical values and environmental challenges, such approaches will need to encompass and address a greater diversity of innovation system agents and spaces if they are to prove successful in their aims. (shrink)

Responsible research and innovation (RRI) is a governance framework promoted by influential policy makers such as the European Commission and academics from the fields of science and technology studies and management. This book is the first text to serve industry. Inspired by existing Corporate Responsibility standards and principles, it offers a selection of tools that can assist practitioners in implementing RRI in business and industry. -/- Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is integrative. It is a convergence of Technology Assessment (TA) (...) and Ethics, including corporate responsibility. The task of linking RRI to existing frameworks has only just begun. This book is a welcome example, showing how Corporate Responsibility tools can drive the implementation of RRI. Prof. Armin Grunwald, Head of the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag and Head of the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany. -/- This is a simple, short, yet encyclopaedic work designed to help business implement RRI using the many tools of Corporate Responsibility (CR) already in place, everything from ISO9001 to the Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability. It makes clear the ways in which RRI is an extension of ideas already well-developed in CR. I learned a lot reading it. Prof. Michael Davis, Senior Fellow, Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions, Illinois Institute of Technology, USA. (shrink)