Responsible research and innovation between “New Governance” and fundamental rights

Abstract

Introduction: Governing technologies under uncertainty conditions 1 Academic literature and public debates alike have increasingly acknowledged the pervasiveness of uncertainty in science, technology and their governance. Uncertainty is no longer viewed as a residual area of ignorance and risk to be gradually reduced by way of increasing expert knowledge and enhancing technological control. On the contrary, uncertainty is viewed as the unavoidable consequence of the interaction of technology with its environment, that is, of technology's ecological nature (Luhmann 1993). As an effect of these limitations of our experimental knowledge, the introduction of new technologies in society becomes a form of "societal experimentation" (e.g. van de Poel 2009; Felt and Wynne 2007), and risks and possible developments can be detected only after technologies have been introduced in and have displayed their impacts on society. Notions like "manufactured risk" (Giddens 1999) or "secondary consequences" (Beck 1992) were introduced to interpret this paradoxical relationship between increased contingency and the unprecedented knowledge about and control of social life and the physical world, characterizing new and emerging technologies. Indeed, the increased manipulative knowledge of nature and society produces uncertainty rather than reducing it (Coeckelbergh 2012).

Responsible Research and Innovation and the Governance of Human Enhancement

“…Indeed, a common understanding of RRI emerges across the different definitions, which use different terminology and have distinguished orientations and focus, but share some common characteristics. These common characteristics can therefore be identified as defining the core features of the concept of RRI [13] [14]: a) Responsibility is oriented towards the future rather than towards the past: the specific approach of RRI aims to steer the innovation processes from within, according to societal values and needs, which are held in common.…”

“…These characteristics, derived from its formulation, seem to make RRI stand apart from the other responsibility paradigms, as it combines some of their elements in a new fashion. Indeed, RRI can perhaps be considered a new governance paradigm [13] that goes beyond the traditional emphasis on fault and punishment, risk and compensation, uncertainty and precaution, as it aims to steer the innovation process from the inside towards societal goals rather than coping with its (actual or anticipated) unwanted and unintended externalities (see Table 1). RRI aims to promote the integration of wide societal concerns in research and innovation processes, thus widening their traditional scopes and inscribing them into wider contexts.…”

Voluntary measures, participation and fundamental rights in the governance of research and innovation

“…c) Responsibility is oriented towards future rather than towards the past (Arnaldi, Gorgoni, & Pariotti, 2016): the specific approach of RRI aims at steering the innovation processes from within, according to common-defined societal values and needs.…”

“…This implies departing from the idea of responsibility conceived in terms of reaction and moving towards the idea of responsiveness. When compared with other general paradigms of responsibility (Arnaldi, Gorgoni, & Pariotti, 2016), RRI could therefore be considered as a new model for the responsible governance of research and innovation, overcoming the logic of fault, (corresponding to the traditional moral and legal idea of responsibility), that of risk, which aims at disconnecting the compensation for the damages from liability, and also that of that of precaution, which is linked to the situation of uncertainty characterising epistemology of contemporary science (as the direct or indirect outcomes of innovation practices are not fully predictable in advance; e.g. the effects of GMO's on the biosphere).…”

“…The realisation of the ambitious political aims of RRI cannot be left to the virtue-responsibility dimension of RRI (Arnaldi, Gorgoni & Pariotti, 2018), as even practising all these virtues is no ultimate guarantee that good intentions, schooled by a sensitivity to vulnerability, shaped by quasi-parental care and tempered through responsive dialogue and political deliberation, will not produce bad effects (Grinbaum & Groves, 2013, p. 134).…”