Taking knowledge production seriously in responsible research and innovation

Abstract

Responsible research and innovation (RRI) has been the preferred idiom for interrogating the social, ethical and political dimensions of science, technology and innovation for roughly a decade. The uptake of RRI into prominent policy organisations has resulted in a proliferation of policy frameworks as policy makers have attempted to articulate what it means for them to enact RRI. Here, we draw on our experience developing an RRI framework in the ERA Cofund on Biotechnology. We discuss three ways that treating RRI as a form of knowledge production has allowed us to engage with the institutional dimensions of science: as research within scientific projects; as administrative knowledge; and as methodological knowledge. We argue that Science and Technology Studies' concern with knowledge making offers a valuable route to approach RRI within research funding organisations, and reflect on how this approach might be developed in the next European Commission Framework Programme.

The Societal Readiness Thinking Tool: A Practical Resource for Maturing the Societal Readiness of Research Projects

“…With additional funding, qualitative use-case analyses could illuminate impacts of SR TT adoption on, for example, capabilities conducive to supporting scientist and engineers in anticipating and reflecting on social and ethical dimensions of research and innovation processes (O’Donovan et al, 2021 ). Such studies could provide critical feedback to funding organizations about ways to reconfigure institutional landscapes to be more conducive to anticipatory, reflective knowledge production (Smith et al, 2021 ). Exploring such use-cases over longer periods of time and across disciplines and sectors could offer robust lessons not only regarding capabilities and institutional forms supportive of integrating social and ethical dimensions of research and innovation, but also tracing longer-lived impacts of such anticipatory and reflective efforts across research practice, business, and policy activities.…”

Innovative Methodological Approach to Analyze Innovation and Social Impact

“…The study developed by Zhang et al (2016) proposed an analytical method to cluster associated terms and phrases to constitute meaningful technological topics and their interactions and identify changing topical emphases (Zhang et al, 2016). In all, science and technology studies contribute with knowledge how to approach Responsible research and innovation (RRI) (Smith et al, 2021).…”

Governing beyond the project: Refocusing innovation governance in emerging science and technology funding

“…Although some European programme administrators recognized that responsible innovation demanded ‘something different’ from what had come before (e.g. Smith et al, 2021), it has commonly been used as a direct replacement of Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) initiatives, with administrators simply relabelling the respective sections of their application forms. In the U.S., subsequent investments in high technologies have largely departed from the methodologies developed around the National Nanoscience Initiative (Fisher, 2019).…”

“…And in the U.K., despite these internal governance experiments and the rhetoric of ‘collective responsibility’, almost all responsible innovation work in fields such as synthetic biology, nanoscience and data science has been delegated to research projects rather than adopted at operational funding levels and strategic decision-making processes. This has happened against a background of research council staff struggling to situate responsible innovation in their administrative practices and in relation to dominant political logics of economic growth, academic independence, and a need to accelerate innovation (Owen et al, 2021; Smith et al, 2021).…”