Broadening Discourse on Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)

Nanoethics Broadening Discourse on Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) Christopher Coenen 0 Institute of Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) , POB 3640, 76021 Karlsruhe , Germany - In recent years, notions of Bresponsible innovation^ – and, particularly in Europe, Bresponsible research and innovation^ (RRI) – have become very widespread in academic and political discourse on science and technology. Overarching goals have been defined for RRI at the level of the European Union (EU), including a better alignment of science (policies) with societal needs and the consideration of ethical aspects, the stimulation or implementation of inclusive and deliberative processes (stakeholder involvement and public engagement), and the sharing of responsibility for innovation processes among a wide range of stakeholders by means of early engagement and mutual learning (for example, by means of what are known as Bmobilisation and mutual learning action plans^, MMLAPs). The conceptual work on RRI is still ongoing and may be deemed a process innovation, for example as far as the following five aspects are concerned: societal engagement, gender equality and gender in research and innovation content, open access, science education and ethics. Using tools such as MMLAPs, research policy aims to stimulate discourse on science and technology issues in a highly inclusive fashion in terms of both the target groups it addresses (the general public and the great diversity of actual and potential stakeholders in science and technology issues) and the thematic scope of the discussions and other activities. One example is the MMLAP NeuroEnhancement: Responsible Research and Innovation (NERRI) [http://www.nerri.eu], which sought to foster productive dialogue between potential users, potential Bdesigners^ (researchers, engineers and developers) and legislators who will potentially play a part in setting the legal framework for neuro-enhancement technologies before products start to hit the marketplace. Under the MMLAP Synthetic Biology – Engaging with New and Emerging Science and Technology in Responsible Governance of the Science and Society Relationship (SYNENERGENE) [http://www.synenergene.eu], we have not only involved stakeholders from science, industry and policymaking, but also from a wide variety of civil society organisations with very different political agendas, as well as educators and, to an unusually large extent, artists and art institutions. The project has incorporated artistic activities on the basis of an understanding of art as a cultural domain with its “own logic” different from, for example, instrumentalist logic. From this perspective, art is not a means to an end in the context of RRI (deployed, for example, to generate public attention or involve citizens, although Bformats^ from art, such as drama, can be exploited for these purposes), but contributes, in a Habermasian sense, to normative communicative action. Much in line with Habermasian thinking, RRI activities and discussions about them at EU level often focus on the rational evaluation of, and public accountability in, science and technology matters [ 1 ]. Jürgen Habermas distinguishes between the domains of the instrumental, the moralpractical and the aesthetic, which correspond to three validity claims: cognitive truth, normative rightness and subjective expressiveness. In his view, communicative action based on normative reason is crucial for democratic social interaction, and aesthetic works cannot coordinate action in this way [ 2 ]. Aesthetic experience, however, can, as he argued, permeate our cognitive significations and normative expectations, change the manner in which they refer to one another, and renew the interpretation of our needs that informs how we perceive the world. Accordingly, art is a domain for itself but, through its public reception, can significantly contribute to normative communicative action on science and technology – and thus to the social shaping of such fields. In her article in the present issue of NanoEthics: Studies of New and Emerging Technologies, Nora Vaage discusses the ethics of bioart and how the latter can impact on ethical discourse. She argues that living artworks created with biotechnology raise a range of ethical questions, some of which are unprecedented, others well known from other contexts. Vaage points out that discussions of ethical issues in bioart do not refer to existing discourses on art and morality familiar from the field of aesthetics. She also proposes an integrated approach which may permit a more profound understanding of ethical issues in bioart, inspire new ways of thinking about ethics in relation to art in general, and impart novel stimuli to bioethics and technology assessment. While this journal welcomes submissions on all kinds of studies dealing with art and technology, and takes it for granted that the analysis of (...truncated)