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Responsible Research Is Not Good Science: Divergences Inhibiting the Enactment of RRI in Nanosafety

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Abstract

The desire to guide research and innovation in more ‘responsible’ directions is increasingly emphasised in national and international policies, the funding of inter- and trans-disciplinary collaborations and academic scholarship on science policy and technology governance. Much of this growth has occurred simultaneously with the development of nanoscale sciences and technologies, where emphasis on the need for responsible research and innovation (RRI) has been particularly widespread. This paper describes an empirical study exploring the potential for RRI within nanosafety research in Norway and Denmark. It identifies three different ways nanosafety scientists relate to core RRI criteria, demonstrating areas of both convergence and divergence between their views and those of academics and policymakers currently defining and working to promote RRI. The paper identifies a range of practical barriers and cultural differences that are creating such divergences and inhibiting the enactment of RRI within the particular site of research laboratories. It concludes that the identified differences and challenges demand critical reflection on both the appropriateness and applicability of RRI characteristics for enactment at the level of individual research scientists. Significant changes are therefore advocated as required if RRI, as currently imagined and promoted, is to become an integral mode of scientific culture.

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Notes

  1. https://www.rri-tools.eu/. This toolkit is the deliverable of the RRI Tools project. Accessed 21 June 2017

  2. It is worth noting that sometimes ‘stakeholder collaboration’ is used to refer to public outreach and engagement exercises, although we have chosen to separate these two threads here

  3. Note therefore that different results may have been obtained if the work had been conducted with scientists primarily working in industry or indeed in fields not already oriented towards generating risk-based research relevant for policy and industry. Indeed these would all be interesting areas for further research

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Acknowledgements

This research was written with the support from the Research Council of Norway project REDIG [239002/O30] and the European Union Seventh Framework Programme project NANoREG [310584]. Special thanks goes to the project manager of the REDIG project, Ana Delgado, for her thoughtful comments and input during the research and on draft versions of this article, all the nanosafety scientists involved and the valuable feedback of participants of the S.Net Conference 2015 and the ELSA conference NORWAY 2016.

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  1. Society, Ecology and Ethics Department, GenØk Centre for Biosafety, Siva Innovation Centre, 9294, Tromsø, Norway

    Lilian van Hove & Fern Wickson

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  1. Lilian van Hove
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  2. Fern Wickson
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Correspondence to Lilian van Hove.

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van Hove, L., Wickson, F. Responsible Research Is Not Good Science: Divergences Inhibiting the Enactment of RRI in Nanosafety. Nanoethics 11, 213–228 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-017-0306-5

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