About RRI

Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is an emerging concept that proposes to change the science and technology system through more transparent, participatory and reflective processes and that calls for the co-responsibility of different actors in deciding where research and innovation go.

The European Commission’s vision of RRI

Responsible research and innovation is an approach that anticipates and assesses potential implications and societal expectations with regard to research and innovation, with the aim of fostering the design of inclusive and sustainable research and innovation.

RRI implies that societal actors (researchers, citizens, policy makers, business, third sector organisations, etc.) work together during the whole research and innovation process in order to better align both the process and its outcomes with the values, needs and expectations of society.

In practice, RRI is implemented through a multi-actor and public engagement process in research and innovation, enabling easier access to scientific results, the take up of gender and ethics in the research and innovation content and process, and formal and informal science education.

RRI and ethics

The studies and approaches to the RRI tend to be focused on two backgrounds:

An administrative-political approach as generators and guidings of public policies and research

An academic-applied approach in which the administrative-political definitions of nuclear ideas will be discussed, justifying their basis and trying to reach more complete definitions with the objective of driving RRI idea to a practical field (laboratory, funding, industry or research and innovation institutions).

Owing to the importance of the administrative definitions promoted by the European Union, it is crucial to start from their key elements so as to be able to progress on the knowledge of academic developments carried out academically. An accurate study and analysis of RRI administrative and institutional definitions underlines the following RRI aspects in particular: inclusivity, participation, anticipation, social desirability and ethical acceptability.

It must be highlighted that all EU documents make reference to ‘Ethics’, understood as a way to ensure the ‘relevance’ and ‘acceptability’ of research and innovation results. Thus, its positive character is remarkable since Ethics allows research and innovation to be aligned with social welfare, employment growth and social cohesion, as well as to avoid wrong directions regarding the investment in research and innovation. This is the reason why it is held that “(…) ethics has often been seen as “an instrument” for achieving socially desirable outcomes” (Burget et al., 2017).

Some academic approaches

The so-called academic definition is based on some aspects, such as: deliberation processes, the participation of the different stakeholders in the research and innovation processes, anticipation, and the reflection and response that research and innovation must give to the societal needs and values.

Responsible innovation means taking care of the future through collective stewardship of science and innovation in the present (Stilgoe et al. 2013, p.1570).

RRI is a higher-level responsibility or meta-responsibility that aims to shape, maintain, develop, coordinate and align existing and novel research and innovation-related processes, actors and responsibilities with a view to ensuring desirable and acceptable research outcomes (Stahl 2013, p. 708).

Responsible Research and Innovation is a transparent, interactive process by which societal actors and innovators become mutually responsive to each other with a view to the (ethical) acceptability, sustainability and societal desirability of the innovation process and its marketable products (in order to allow a proper embedding of scientific and technological advances in our society) (Von Schomberg, 2012)

Moral validity criterion

Nevertheless, a critical examination of the Ethic concept managed allows to show they do not go beyond the level of validity of social norms and values, being unable to find a criterion that guides legitimacy of the processes and decision making in the activity of the RRI . That is to say, they do not leave the validity level of social norms and values, being unable to find a criterion that guides the legitimacy of the processes and decision making in the activity of the RRI (Fernández Beltrán et al, 2017).

“The Responsible Research and Innovation process (RRI) entails that the different stakeholders establish the communicative, interactive and participative conditions required to reach the mentioned acceptability. Hence, discourse becomes the basis of ethics both in processes and results, and acceptability and desirability are established in that dialogue framework necessary in any RRI process where the following participant groups should be involved:

Scientific Community executing the research: researchers, innovative and Scientific Community.
Public Administration that has management and financing tasks; political decision-makers, political authorities and public administration.
Companies, which may benefit, be financiers, and cooperate in communication and transfer: industries, companies and private companies.

d. Civil Society allowing dissemination but also the establishment of the RRI agenda and goals: society in a broad sense, from the third sector to citizenship.”

(García-Marzá, Fernández Beltrán, & Sanahuja, 2017, p. 115)

Therefore, it is necessary to develop and extend an Ethics Governance System for RRI in Higher Education, Funding and Research Centres that provides management structures (Ethna Office) and tools to make decisions in order to achieve responsible research and innovation from a critical and ethical point of view.