‘Opening up’ science policy: engaging with RRI in Brazil

Narrative as a resource for inclusive governance: a UK–Brazil comparison of public responses to nanotechnology

“…But, to counteract a shared prognosis of profound pessimism, and though practices of care and institutional redesign, innovators and policymakers have to engage with the narratives of technoscientific failure and the conditions under which they endure in the public realm (Macnaghten, Davies, and Kearnes 2019). In Brazil, by contrast, the debate on responsible innovation and governance requires a different configuration of actors and assemblages (see also Reyes-Galindo, Monteiro, and Macnaghten 2019). We need to consider what can happen in a context where neither the scientists, nor the politicians, and even less the public identify themselves as having a 'stake' in the debate (or even as needing to have a stake in the debate).…”

Translation, transduction, and transformation: expanding practices of responsibility across borders

“…As such, RRI by any name is unlikely to succeed in Germany if it is widely understood as a top-down imposed S&T strategy rather than as a bottom-up 'institutional preoccupation. ' Reyes-Galindo, Monteiro, and Macnaghten (2019) also find the centrality of scientific autonomy to be a significant hurdle to the uptake of RRI discourses in Brazil. Scientific autonomy is understood as fundamentally necessary in order to shield science from political attack, particularly in a political climate that readily evokes not-so-distant memories of military dictatorship.…”

“…The emphasis on tensions raised by overlaps with other similar concepts, and the challenges for RRI in contexts where these exist (Ashworth et al 2019;Gao, Liao, and Zhao 2019;Ladikas et al 2019;Van der Molen et al 2019), suggest that when interpreted as a checklist of keys RRI can easily be coopted to maintain the status quo, lose transformative potential, or simply be sidelined in these circumstances we see the unplanned transduction of RRI into more familiar adjacent concepts. Other essays highlight resistance at the national and organizational levels to the prospect of direct transfer of top-down science policy prescriptions (such as gender quotas or data sharing guidelines) across political boundaries to scientific communities who value autonomy and as such see RRI as a possible threat (Ladikas et al 2019;Reyes-Galindo, Monteiro, and Macnaghten 2019). In contrast, researchers observed RRI being embraced most strongly in terms of its usefulness as a tool for learning (Egeland, Forsberg, and Maximova-Mentzoni 2019), advancing meaning-making at a local level (Ladikas et al 2019;Reyes-Galindo, Monteiro, and Macnaghten 2019), creating novel connections and beneficial relationships (Arnaldi and Neresini 2019;Gao, Liao, and Zhao 2019), and as an invitation to consider what practices might be useful for increasing scientific responsibility in terms of national or institutional values (Ashworth et al 2019).…”

“…Other essays highlight resistance at the national and organizational levels to the prospect of direct transfer of top-down science policy prescriptions (such as gender quotas or data sharing guidelines) across political boundaries to scientific communities who value autonomy and as such see RRI as a possible threat (Ladikas et al 2019;Reyes-Galindo, Monteiro, and Macnaghten 2019). In contrast, researchers observed RRI being embraced most strongly in terms of its usefulness as a tool for learning (Egeland, Forsberg, and Maximova-Mentzoni 2019), advancing meaning-making at a local level (Ladikas et al 2019;Reyes-Galindo, Monteiro, and Macnaghten 2019), creating novel connections and beneficial relationships (Arnaldi and Neresini 2019;Gao, Liao, and Zhao 2019), and as an invitation to consider what practices might be useful for increasing scientific responsibility in terms of national or institutional values (Ashworth et al 2019). These insights point to the difficulties that would come in treating RRI as a tool of global governance and market harmonization, however tempting it may be for international governance organizations to imagine this role for the concept.…”

Public engagement in contested political contexts: reflections on the role of recursive reflexivity in responsible innovation

“…They are also set within a moment in which the imperative is urgent to address power dynamics, exclusions, and structural injustices that both shape innovation and within which new innovations get taken up. As scholars have repeatedly noted, RI frameworks and accompanying capacities, such as public engagements, have primarily focused on the global North (Macnaghten et al 2014;Wong 2016;De Campos et al 2017;Doezema et al 2019;Hartley et al 2019;Reyes-Galindo, Monteiro, and Macnaghten 2019). This special issue continues to bring much needed attention to contexts within the global South where priorities for RI and modes of knowledge production may offer new contexts.…”