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Welcome to the first entirely open access volume and issue of the Journal of Responsible Innovation!One of the hallmarks of responsible innovation is its attempt to generally encompass multiple sit...

As we come to the end of a tumultuous 2020, it is a pleasure to be able end on an upbeat note and report some of the positive things that have happened this year for the Journal of Responsible Inno...

As we reflect on what actions, changes, and realizations are possible due to the disruptive natural experiment of the current pandemic, there are reasons for both optimism and pessimism as industri...

As we enter the third decade of the twenty-first century, ensuring that science, technology, development, and innovation are pursued responsibly will remain as challenging as before and undoubtedly...

Across the globe, research, development, and innovation (RDI) processes are operating at increasingly accelerated paces, promising rapid development and higher standards of living, but also increasing the likelihood of unintended, socially undesirable effects that inevitably attend progress. The notion of responsible research and innovation (RRI) has emerged in response to this dilemma, and the integration of RRI into daily RDI practices itself represents a considerable challenge. Integrating RRI concepts and practices at an early or even pre-career stage, before researchers fully develop their daily routines, could strengthen the assimilation of RRI into RDI more generally. Thus, in line with the emphasis of RRI on science education, how to integrate RRI aspects in the thinking of researchers-in-the-making before they start their active research carrier is an important but under-investigated question. In addition, the special features of Generation Z currently being in higher education suggest the use nontraditional tools in science education.Accordingly, this exploratory study asks how the RRI-awareness of researchers-in-the-making can be raised. We adapt the Socio-Technical Integration Research (STIR) method, which facilitates reflection on societal aspects during scientific research practices and decisions, to the context of science education. We test the introduction of STIR among researchers-in-the-making studying natural sciences at the University of Szeged (Hungary). Our findings suggest potential steps for science education on RRI with attention to the special needs Generation Z and facilitating their RRI awareness for their active researcher career.

This issue of the Journal of Responsible Innovation brings readers along a multi-level arc of governance sites that engages with academic ‘cultures of disengagement’ (Cech 2014), introduces an anti...

© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Increased funding of nanotechnology research in the USA at the turn of the millennium was paired with a legislative commitment to and a novel societal research policy for the responsible development of nanotechnology. Innovative policy discourses at the time suggested that such work could engage a variety of publics, stakeholders, and researchers to enhance the capacity of research systems to adapt and be responsive to societal values and concerns. This article reviews one of two federally funded social science research centers-the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University(CNS-ASU)-to assess the merits of this form of engaged social science research in which social science contributes not only to traditional knowledge production but also to the capacity of natural science and engineering researchers and research communities for greater reflexivity and responsiveness, ultimately producing more socially robust research systems.

Requirements to integrate societal considerations into research and development practices began appearing throughout the democratic industrialized world in the early 2000s and eventually became a central feature of responsible innovation. Examining one of the earliest and most prominent policy examples, this paper investigates the conceptual basis of the U.S. nanotechnology program’s mandate for socio-technical integration. It argues that policy makers adopted this innovative response to addressing the societal issues of an emerging technology due to their heightened awareness of potential interactions among public attitudes, research directions, and technological trajectories. Integration thus emerged as a governance mechanism for mediating the interaction between these dynamic sources of uncertainty. The mandate emerged in a self-consciously experimental and anticipatory manner and thus provides a practical instance of tentative governance.

This issue of the Journal of Responsible Innovation offers an engaging set of discussions on the implementation, application, translation and scaling of responsible research and innovation (RI, RRI...

Discourses surrounding the design, development, and implementation of contemporary energy innovations variously promise to enhance the reliability of the energy grid, incorporate renewable energy, enable low-carbon transitions, and lead to greater convenience and lower costs for customers. Such wide-ranging visions are constructed and reinforced by sociotechnical imaginaries, or collectively held social beliefs and values that shape and are shaped by innovation processes. In order to understand how national sociotechnical imaginaries interact with social and technological order within smaller locales, we comparatively investigate the development of energy innovations of smart grids and distributed generation in two United States regions – the Pacific Northwest and the Desert Southwest – and two metropolitan areas within those regions – Portland, Oregon, and Phoenix, Arizona. Our findings indicate that the multi-level governance of innovation in energy systems is shaped not only by imaginaries at the national level, but also through imaginaries at the regional level. Our cases of Portland and Phoenix illustrate how different socio-cultural and political-economic contexts interact with and produce variations of national sociotechnical energy imaginaries and how these in turn shape sociotechnical configurations of energy innovations, often as alternatives to national imaginaries.

Reports from integrative researchers who have followed calls for sociotechnical integration emphasize that the potential of interdisciplinary collaboration to inflect the social shaping of technoscience is often constrained by their liminal position. Integrative researchers tend to be positioned as either adversarial outsiders or co-opted insiders. In an attempt to navigate these dynamics, we show that attending to affective disturbances can open up possibilities for productive engagements across disciplinary divides. Drawing on the work of Helen Verran, we analyze “disconcertment” in three sociotechnical integration research studies. We develop a heuristic that weaves together disconcertment, affective labor, and responsivity to analyze the role of the body in interdisciplinary collaborations. We draw out how bodies do affective labor when generating responsivity between collaborators in moments of disconcertment. Responsive bodies can function as sensors, sources, and processors of disconcerting experiences of difference. We further show how attending to disconcertment can stimulate methodological choices to recognize, amplify, or minimize the difference between collaborators. Although these choices are context-dependent, each one examined generates responsivity that supports collaborators to readjust the technical in terms of the social. This analysis contributes to science and technology studies scholarship on the role of affect in successes and failures of interdisciplinary collaboration.

Over the past 50 years, policy makers have sought to shape new and emerging technologies in light of societal risks, public values, and ethical concerns. While much of this work has taken place during “upstream” research prioritization and “downstream” technology regulation, the actual “midstream” work of engineers and other technical experts has increasingly been seen as a site for governing technology in society. This trend towards “socio-technical integration” is reflected in various governance frameworks such as Sustainable Development (SD), Technology Assessment (TA), and Responsible Innovation (RI) that are at the center of transformation research. Discussions around SD, TA, and RI often focus on meso- and macro-level processes and dynamics, with less attention paid to the qualities of individuals that are needed to support transformation processes. We seek to highlight the importance of micro-level practices by drawing attention to the virtues of technical experts. Drawing on empirical study results from embedding philosophical-reflective dialogues within science and engineering laboratories, we claim that poietic, as well as moral and epistemic, virtues belong to those required of technical experts who foster integrative practices in transformation research.

Beginning in late 2017, there has been increasing talk about ‘the end of RRI,’ that is, the presumed termination of the European Commission’s program for Responsible Research and Innovation. As a s...

While technological innovation is a core element of efforts to increase public welfare, innovators are rarely trained to take the societal dimensions of innovation into account in a systematic manner. Responsible innovation has emerged within policy discourses worldwide to address this challenge. Implementing responsible innovation in daily practices, however, requires addressing both the multidisciplinary and the culturally situated nature of innovation processes. Effectiveness of Socio-Technical Integration Research (STIR) has been tested, but primarily only in developed countries, raising questions about how well it works in innovation and cultural settings differing from Western cultures. Therefore, this study analyzes the possibities of institutionalizing responsible innovation in an Eastern European country, namely in Hungary. For this investigation, we conducted STIR-pilots in two Hungarian natural science research groups. The findings show that though the original STIR method can be adapted to sup...

While much of the scholarship on Responsible Innovation (RI) and Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) has focused on work being done in university environments, this issue of the Journal of Re...

Precision/personalized medicine is a hot topic in health care. Often presented with the motto "the right drug, for the right patient, at the right dose, and the right time," precision medicine is a theory for rational therapeutics as well as practice to individualize health interventions (e.g., drugs, food, vaccines, medical devices, and exercise programs) using biomarkers. Yet, an alien visitor to planet Earth reading the contemporary textbooks on diagnostics might think precision medicine requires only two biomolecules omnipresent in the literature: nucleic acids (e.g., DNA) and proteins, known as the first and second alphabet of biology, respectively. However, the precision/personalized medicine community has tended to underappreciate the third alphabet of life, the "sugar code" (i.e., the information stored in glycans, glycoproteins, and glycolipids). This article brings together experts in precision/personalized medicine science, pharmacoglycomics, emerging technology governance, cultural studies, contemporary art, and responsible innovation to critically comment on the sociomateriality of the three alphabets of life together. First, the current transformation of targeted therapies with personalized glycomedicine and glycan biomarkers is examined. Next, we discuss the reasons as to why unraveling of the sugar code might have lagged behind the DNA and protein codes. While social scientists have historically noted the importance of constructivism (e.g., how people interpret technology and build their values, hopes, and expectations into emerging technologies), life scientists relied on the material properties of technologies in explaining why some innovations emerge rapidly and are more popular than others. The concept of sociomateriality integrates these two explanations by highlighting the inherent entanglement of the social and the material contributions to knowledge and what is presented to us as reality from everyday laboratory life. Hence, we present a hypothesis based on a sociomaterial conceptual lens: because materiality and synthesis of glycans are not directly driven by a template, and thus more complex and open ended than sequencing of a finite length genome, social construction of expectations from unraveling of the sugar code versus the DNA code might have evolved differently, as being future-uncertain versus future-proof, respectively, thus potentially explaining the "sugar lag" in precision/personalized medicine diagnostics over the past decades. We conclude by introducing systems scientists, physicians, and biotechnology industry to the concept, practice, and value of responsible innovation, while glycomedicine and other emerging biomarker technologies (e.g., metagenomics and pharmacomicrobiomics) transition to applications in health care, ecology, pharmaceutical/diagnostic industries, agriculture, food, and bioengineering, among others.

By embracing the performative logic of technoscience, state policy makers are reimagining the relations among science, technology and society, in the process creating both practical and symbolic shifts in governance. These shifts—including possibilities for more deliberative and interactive roles for scientists, social scientists, and public citizens—are themselves situated within a technoscientific frame: they potentially open up more distributed and diverse opportunities for participation in the social processes that shape technological emergence, even as they organize such participatory roles within more broadly coordinated attempts at governmental control and frame them in terms of a state-sponsored imaginary of collectivized innovation and sociability. Using the case of the National Nanotechnology Initiative in the United States, this chapter reflects on the interplay of enthusiasm and ambivalence that led to an increasing acknowledgement of the role social sciences can play in the performance of technoscientific processes. While this development can be seen as an opportunity for distributive and democratic governance of technoscience, it also intensifies technosciencesociety entanglements.

Digitalization, a dominant megatrend in today’s global world, offers numerous intriguing technological possibilities. Out of these novelties, self-driving cars have rapidly come to be a primary focus; the literature categorizes them as a radical innovation due to the possibility that the mass adoption of self-driving cars would not only radically change everyday life for members of industrialized societies, but calls into question the infrastructural, legal, and social ordering of towns and numerous aspects of transportation in the societies that adopt them. Meanwhile, the results of several international surveys with large samples show that public opinion of self-driving cars is ambivalent, indicating parallel signals of enthusiasm and concern. The aim of this paper is to develop key components of a general strategy for addressing the societal challenges associated with self-driving cars as identified in international surveys and relevant literature and using the framework of responsible innovation.

A critical exploration of today's global imperative to innovate, by champions, critics, and reformers of innovation. Corporate executives, politicians, and school board leaders agree—Americans must innovate. Innovation experts fuel this demand with books and services that instruct aspiring innovators in best practices, personal habits, and workplace cultures for fostering innovation. But critics have begun to question the unceasing promotion of innovation, pointing out its gadget-centric shallowness, the lack of diversity among innovators, and the unequal distribution of innovation's burdens and rewards. Meanwhile, reformers work to make the training of innovators more inclusive and the outcomes of innovation more responsible. This book offers an overdue critical exploration of today's global imperative to innovate by bringing together innovation's champions, critics, and reformers in conversation. The book presents an overview of innovator training, exploring the history, motivations, and philosophies of programs in private industry, universities, and government; offers a primer on critical innovation studies, with essays that historicize, contextualize, and problematize the drive to create innovators; and considers initiatives that seek to reform and reshape what it means to be an innovator. The open access edition of this book was made possible by generous funding from the MIT Libraries. ContributorsErrol Arkilic, Catherine Ashcraft, Leticia Britos Cavagnaro, W. Bernard Carlson, Lisa D. Cook, Humera Fasihuddin, Maryann Feldman, Erik Fisher, Benoît Godin, Jenn Gustetic, David Guston, Eric S. Hintz, Marie Stettler Kleine, Dutch MacDonald, Mickey McManus, Sebastian Pfotenhauer, Natalie Rusk, Andrew L. Russell, Lucinda M. Sanders, Brenda Trinidad, Lee Vinsel, Matthew Wisnioski

Since the first electrification systems were established in the United States between 1910 and 1930, energy systems governance at the municipal level has included competing visions for how engineering design and energy policy-making should foster particular social outcomes. Using Phoenix as a representative metropolitan area, and the cases of distributed generation and in-home power management devices as examples, this paper explores how the norms and values embedded in energy systems design and planning shape how residents experience change in the energy grid. Through these case studies, the authors argue that such “sociotechnical imaginaries” – collectively formed visions of social life related to science and technology development – are a crucial, yet overlooked, pathway for social science to engage in fostering socially reflexive mechanisms in energy development. To conclude, the authors outline a research program for applying the established methodology of socio-technical integration research (STIR) ...

Like other areas of emerging science and technology that trigger prolonged public debate over their transformative prospects, gene drives simultaneously generate prospects for new knowledge, hoped-...

The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jhsem-2017-0019 Despite Federal directives calling for an integrated approach to strengthening the resilience of critical infras- tructure systems, little is known about the relationship between human behavior and infrastructure resilience. While it is well recognized that human response can either amplify or mitigate catastrophe, the role of human or psychological resilience when infrastructure systems are confronted with surprise remains an oversight in policy documents and resilience research. Existing research treats human resilience and technological resilience as separate capacities that may create stress conditions that act upon one another. There remains a knowledge gap regarding study of those attributes in each that build infrastructure resilience as an integrated system of humans and technologies. This work draws on concepts found in the resilience engineering and psychology literature to examine the dynamic relationships between human resilience and the resilience of complex, socio- technical critical infrastructure systems. We identify and organize 18 system capacities and 23 human capacities that influence infrastructure resilience. We then correlate individual human and system resilience capacities to determine how each influences four socio-technical processes for resilience: sensing, anticipating, adapting, and learning. Our analysis shows that the human and technical resilience capacities reviewed are interconnected, interrelated, and interdependent. Further, we find current literature is focused more on cognitive and behav- ioral dimensions of human resilience and we offer ways to better incorporate affective capacities. Together, we present a simple way to link the resilience of technological systems to the cognitive, behavioral, and affective dimensions of humans responsible for the system design, operation, and management. National Science Foundation, Funder Id: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000001, Grant Number: 1441352.

This chapter argues that it is inappropriate to use the term “interactional expertise” in the context of laboratory ethnographies and engagement studies, such as the Socio-technical Integration Research (STIR) Project, where “embedded humanists,” who are not experts in laboratory science, use approaches from the social sciences and humanities to engage natural scientists. It posits that the goal in these situations is not to become an interactional expert in a particular field but to become conversational and knowledgeable to the extent of being able to ask questions that facilitate ethical and societal reflection in real time. It further proposes a new and different category that captures the abilities and knowledge cultivated in such cases, and argues that the term “interactional competence” is a more appropriate fit.

Are “behavioral addictions” really mental illnesses or just bad habits? A look at the latest evidence

This issue of the Journal of Responsible Innovation rounds out Volume 3 by focusing on applications and assessments of various responsible innovation frameworks. It echoes themes raised in the firs...

Walk into many Arizona Walgreens these days and you will find that the pharmacy associated with it has a blood-testing center. There you can sit down and peruse a slick, glossy menu that lists more...

Responsible innovation requires that scientific and other expert practices be responsive to society. We take stock of a variety of collaborative approaches to socio-technical integration that seek to broaden the societal contexts technical experts take into account during their routine activities. Part of a larger family of engaged scholarship that includes inter- and trans-disciplinarity as well as stakeholder and public engagement, we distinguish collaborative socio-technical integration in terms of its proximity to and transformation of expert practices. We survey a variety of approaches that differ widely in terms of their integrative methods, conceptions of societal context, roles, and aspirations for intervention. Taking a handful of “communities of integration” as exemplars, we then provide a framework for comparing the forms, means, and ends of collaborative integration. We conclude by reflecting on some of the main features of, and tensions within, this developing arena of practical inquiry and engagement and what this suggests for integrative efforts aimed at responsible innovation.

Enhancing the responsiveness of science and innovation programs to societal values is a critical element of responsible innovation. Distinct from laboratory-level research into socio-technical integration, this paper focuses on integration and responsiveness at the level of research priority setting. Taking the case of nanotechnology, it evaluates decision-making in the USA and the UK in the wake of novel policy initiatives for societal research and engagement. It asks to what extent decision-makers explicitly reflected upon societal considerations during priority setting and allocation. Interviews with key decision-makers and staff reveal limited integration of societal actors and considerations during research prioritization. In response to a pervasive history of institutional practices that preclude socio-technical integration, and in contrast to concerns that such considerations may slow down R&D, we propose that building responsiveness into research prioritization can support productivity, contribute to more socially robust outcomes, and possibly even enhance national competitiveness.

Recently, the notion of responsible research and innovation (RRI) has been gaining momentum in policy and practice. The main claim of RRI is that social, ethical and environmental aspects should be taken into consideration in scientific research and innovation activities. Socio-Technical Integration Research (STIR) is one of the first tools emerging from RRI research that is designed to help research, development and innovation actors practically implement key aspects of RRI in their daily work. Since its inception in 2006, results from multiple international studies have demonstrated the possibility and utility of STIR, albeit in developed countries. In 2015, a STIR pilot study was conducted in the developing region of Szeged, Hungary. Its results are similar, but far from those achieved in developed countries. In this paper we explore what, if any, role the innovation environment plays in the outcomes of the implementation of RRI practices such as STIR. We analyze STIR results and effectiveness in the wider context of the national innovation environments of Hungary and the Netherlands. Our findings suggest that the innovation environment can affect the success and effectiveness of approaches such as STIR. As a policy recommendation, we therefore recommend that RRI approaches such as STIR be adapted to the innovation environment of the country concerned.

“Mathematics and Root Interdisciplinarity: Historical Perspectives” examines how mathematics meets criteria in the age of the inter- and transdisciplinarity of being a discipline that lies at the root of other disciplines. The chapter surveys the historical range of mathematics as directly applicable to a wide set of phenomena, practices, and developments in many other fields of learning and human endeavor. This brief reflection suggests that the application of mathematics to other domains is partially at least a function of what mathematics is considered to be.