Challenges to the Story of Innovation

2020 ◽  
pp. 23-34
Author(s):  
Michiel van Oudheusden
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Responsible Research And Innovation ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
Research And Innovation ◽  
Responsible Research ◽  
Technological Decision Making

This chapter sets out the meanings attached to the concept of ‘innovation’ and asks how it has recently come to occupy the political and economic position it now holds. Drawing from science and technology studies, which has long sought to better incorporate the public in technological decision-making, it explores the impetus towards connecting ‘responsibility’ with ‘innovation’ and the context from which this derives. Finally, it examines how this impetus has become incorporated into various frameworks for Responsible (Research and) Innovation, and what is missing from this approach in terms of understanding the place of ‘innovation’ in the present political economy, and the place of politics in innovation.

scholarly journals Diversifying the Deliberative Turn: Toward an Agonistic RRI

2021 ◽  
pp. 016224392110672
Author(s):  
Deborah Scott
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Political Field ◽  
Research And Innovation ◽  
Contemporary Science ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Responsible Research ◽  
Opening Up

In its “deliberative turn,” the field of science and technology studies (STS) has strongly advocated opening up decision-making processes around science and technology to more perspectives and knowledges. While the theory of democracy underpinning this is rarely explicitly addressed, the language and ideas used are often drawn from deliberative democracy. Using the case of synthetic biology and Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), this paper looks at challenges of public engagement and finds parallels in long-standing critiques of deliberative democracy. The paper suggests that STS scholars explore other theories of decision-making and explores what an RRI grounded in agonistic pluralism might entail. An agonistic RRI could develop empirical research around questions of power relations in contemporary science and technology, seek to facilitate the formation of political publics around relevant issues, and frame different actors’ stances as adversarial positions on a political field rather than “equally valid” perspectives.

scholarly journals Technology, Public Participation, and the American Bureaucracy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher George Torres
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Participation ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Environmental Literacy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Policy Entrepreneurs ◽  
Decision Making Processes

This dissertation analyzes three participatory technology assessment (pTA) projects conducted within United States federal agencies between 2014 and 2018. The field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) argues that a lack of public participation in addressing issues of science and technology in society has produced undemocratic processes of decision-making with outcomes insensitive to the daily lives of the public. There has been little work in STS, however, examining what the political pressures and administrative challenges are to improving public participation in U.S. agency decision-making processes. Following a three-essay format, this dissertation aims to fill this gap. Drawing on qualitative interviews with key personnel, and bringing STS, policy studies, and public administration scholarship into conversation, this dissertation argues for the significance of “policy entrepreneurs” who from within U.S. agencies advocate for pTA and navigate the political controls on innovative forms of participation. The first essay explores how the political culture and administrative structures of the American federal bureaucracy shape the bureaucratic contexts of public participation in science and technology decision-making. The second essay is an in-depth case study of the role political controls and policy entrepreneurs played in adopting, designing, and implementing pTA in NASA’s Asteroid Initiative. The third essay is a comparative analysis of how eight political and administrative conditions informed pTA design and implementation for NASA’s Asteroid Initiative, DOE’s consent-based nuclear waste siting program, and NOAA’s Environmental Literacy Program. The results of this dissertation highlight how important the political and administrative contexts of federal government programs are to understanding how pTA is designed and implemented in agency science and technology decision-making processes, and the key role agency policy entrepreneurs play in facilitating pTA through these political and administrative contexts. This research can aid STS scholars and practitioners better anticipate and mitigate the barriers to embedding innovative forms of public participation in U.S. federal government science and technology program design and decision-making processes.

scholarly journals Steering research and innovation through RRI. What horizon for Europe?

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (03) ◽  
pp. C02 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Simone
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Genome Editing ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Responsible Research And Innovation ◽  
Innovative Technology ◽  
European Research ◽  
Research And Innovation ◽  
The Future ◽  
Responsible Research

Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is gaining momentum worldwide and is envisaged as a needed tool to properly govern controversial innovative technology (i.e. genome editing, AI). Europe is considered a leader in fostering such approach, notably through its institutionalization. Even so, the future of European Research and Innovation (R&I) seems to be designed without a central role for RRI. After long effort and so much public EU money to support projects to ground RRI principles and practices in key contexts for the flourishing of science and technology in Europe, such as the industrial realm and regional settings, this counter-intuitive decision could undermine the leadership of Europe in prioritizing civil and human rights and needs, values and expectations of its citizens when steering science and technology, that European R&I strongly need to go further.

scholarly journals Reforming Intergovernmental Fiscal Relationships in China: A Political Economy Perspective

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bin Chen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Fiscal Federalism ◽  
Fiscal Decentralization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Local Economies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Foundations

This paper first explores some key principles central to a well-functioning, central/local fiscal relationship from a political economy perspective of federalism. It then applies these principles to an examination of reforming intergovernmental fiscal relationships in China from 1980s to the early 1990s. It is argued that the economic principle central to fiscal federalism is the determination of the optimal structure of the public sector in terms of the assignment of decision-making responsibility for specified functions to representatives of the interests of the proper geographical subsets of society. Fiscal decentralization, as evidenced in China, provides local government with incentives to build a hospitable environment of competition for people and capital and, therefore, prospers local economies. However, China’s experience also suggests that fiscal decentralization without the relevant political institutional foundation will bring about negative effects. The political foundations of fiscal federalism are as essential as its economic principles in preserving and sustaining fiscal federalism.

The story of lead: a context for learning about responsible research and innovation (RRI) in the chemistry classroom

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 1145-1155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ron Blonder ◽  
Esty Zemler ◽  
Sherman Rosenfeld
Keyword(s):  
Responsible Research And Innovation ◽  
Shared Understanding ◽  
Science And Society ◽  
Chemistry Curriculum ◽  
Chemistry Students ◽  
The Public ◽  
Building Trust ◽  
Research And Innovation ◽  
Work Done ◽  
Responsible Research

Responsible research and innovation (RRI) stands at the center of several EU projects and represents a contemporary view of the connection between science and society. The goal of RRI is to create a shared understanding of the appropriate behaviors of governments, business and NGOs which are central to building trust and confidence of the public and other stakeholders in research and innovation. In this paper we describe a 4.5 hour lesson, “The Story of Lead,” which was developed for teaching RRI to high school chemistry students, based on the historical story of lead. The lesson is part of a larger module. The lesson connects the chemistry curriculum, related to the scientific aspects of lead, to the 6 RRI dimensions. We describe the progression of the lesson, provide relevant links and teaching materials, and present responses of teachers, after they tried out the lesson. The RRI dimensions are compared to prior work done in the field of Socioscientific Issues (SSI). Based on this evidence, we suggest that the lesson can be a good introduction to the topic of RRI in chemistry classrooms.

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