Business, science and technology governance: from layering, conversion and drift to responsible research and innovation?

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.

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Challenges to the Story of Innovation

Responsibility Beyond Growth ◽

10.1332/policypress/9781529208177.003.0002 ◽

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.

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Responsible research and innovation (RRI) in Hungary: A Western model, an Eastern illiberal regime, and a case of deferred institutional adaptation

Pravni zapisi ◽

10.5937/pravzap0-31393 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 62-90

Author(s):

Márton Varju

Keyword(s):

Policy Making ◽

Significant Degree ◽

Responsible Research And Innovation ◽

Research Development ◽

Technology Governance ◽

Economic Competitiveness ◽

Research And Innovation ◽

Western Model ◽

Private Domain ◽

Responsible Research

Responsible research and innovation (RRI) is a mode of research, development and innovation (RDI) governance which has proliferated primarily in European states with a tradition and/or culture of participatory and deliberative technology governance. It assumes the existence of open, transparent and accessible policy-making processes, and a culture of responsibility and accountability in government and in the private domain. In Hungary, where RDI is supposed to be the key to economic competitiveness, RRI has never taken root. Examining the regulation of the Hungarian RDI system, it becomes clear that there is a significant degree of institutional incompatibility with the solutions promoted by RRI. More significantly, the contemporary system of government and administration and the prevailing model of policy-making and governance prevent or exclude deliberately the implementation of RRI.

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