Back to Search
Start Over
Art-Science Collaboration in an EPSRC/BBSRC-Funded Synthetic Biology UK Research Centre
- Source :
- Nanoethics
- Publication Year :
- 2020
- Publisher :
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2020.
-
Abstract
- Here I examine the potential for art-science collaborations to be the basis for deliberative discussions on research agendas and direction. Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) has become a science policy goal in synthetic biology and several other high-profile areas of scientific research. While art-science collaborations offer the potential to engage both publics and scientists and thus possess the potential to facilitate the desired “mutual responsiveness” (René von Schomberg) between researchers, institutional actors, publics and various stakeholders, there are potential challenges in effectively implementing collaborations as well as dangers in potentially instrumentalizing artistic work for science policy or innovation agendas when power differentials in collaborations remain unacknowledged. Art-science collaborations can be thought of as processes of exchange which require acknowledgement of and attention to artistic agendas (how can science be a conceptual and material resource for new aesthetics work) as well as identification of and attention to aesthetic dimensions of scientific research (how are aesthetics and affective framings a part of a specific epistemological resource for scientific research). I suggest the advantage of specifically identifying public engagement/science communication as a distinct aspect of such projects so that aesthetic, scientific or social science/philosophical research agendas are not subsumed to the assumption that the primary or only value of art-science collaborations is as a form of public engagement or science communication to mediate biological research community public relations. Likewise, there may be potential benefits of acknowledging an art-science-RRI triangle as stepping stone to a more reflexive research agenda within the STS/science communication/science policy community. Using BrisSynBio, an EPSRC/BBSRC-funded research centre in synthetic biology, I will discuss the framing for art-science collaborations and practical implementation and make remarks on what happened there. The empirical evidence reviewed here supports the model I propose but additionally, points to the need to broaden the conception of and possible purposes, or motivations for art, for example, in the case of cross-sectoral collaboration with community engaged art.
- Subjects :
- Technology
Informatics
Sociology and Political Science
Art-science collaboration
Science
Interdisciplinarity
Immersive theatre
050905 science studies
Public engagement
Social Science Research Group
Humanities
03 medical and health sciences
History and Philosophy of Science
Management of Technology and Innovation
Reflexivity
Formerly Health & Social Sciences
Science communication
Sociology
Empirical evidence
Synthetic biology
030304 developmental biology
0303 health sciences
Philosophy of science
Responsible Research and Innovation
05 social sciences
Arts
Original Research Paper
Cross-sectoral exchange
Philosophy
Framing (social sciences)
Engineering ethics
Science policy
0509 other social sciences
Social Sciences (miscellaneous)
Biotechnology
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 18714765 and 18714757
- Volume :
- 14
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- NanoEthics
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....dff4c16b42492243d01a903dade3a3fc