Ta(l)king responsibility
May 28, 2015
In social science and policy circles there has been a lot of talk about Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). However, nobody quite knows yet what this means and how it works in the context of harsh economic realities. In the meantime, natural scientists have taken responsibility for their research and innovations in the context of …
Responsible Research and Innovation: Experts, values and judgements
May 3, 2015
Expertise, judgement and values are huge topics in philosophy, psychology and the social sciences in general. I am no expert on these issues. However, I believe that the new Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) agenda imposes a duty to reflect on these notions on those who, like me, are supposed to ‘implement’ RRI within large …
The bioeconomy in the news (or not)
April 30, 2015
At meetings of the BBSRC/EPSRC funded Synthetic Biology Research Centre here at Nottingham the word ‘bioeconomy‘ crops up now and again, which is not surprising, as synthetic biology is supposed to be part of this new economy. In a blog post written in December last year the BBSRC’s Chief Executive Jackie Hunter pointed out that: …
From recombinant DNA to genome editing: A history of responsible innovation?
March 24, 2015
In this post I shall report on a recent call for ethical and regulatory reflection by scientists engaged in a new genomic technology. I’ll then put this into a historical context of previous initiatives of that kind, and finally ask whether this can be called ‘Responsible Research and Innovation’. CRISPR Recently, a new controversy has …
Mundane Consequences of the Unintended
March 13, 2015
This is a GUEST POST by Richard Helliwell, a PhD student at the Institute for Science and Society. How can responsible research and innovation frameworks deal with mundane consequences, consequences that although minor add perhaps imperceptibly to the load of daily frustrations and annoyances that emerge through our interactions with various technologies and services. The …
Synthetic biology markets: Opportunities and obstacles
December 31, 2014
As some people know from my previous posts on synthetic biology, I am interested in tracing how synthetic biology is made public in the news media and whether or how it is becoming a matter of public debate. “Synthetic biology is an emerging area of research and is broadly described as the design and construction …
RRI and impact: An ‘impossiblist’ agenda for research?
November 22, 2014
Richard Jones has written a long, profound and thought-provoking blog post on (ir)responsible innovation (stagnation). I read his post alongside a recent post on the social impact of research, its challenges and opportunities. This made me think that we are witnessing a confluence of agendas which are generally only looked at separately but that should …
Making synthetic biology public: Challenges and responsibilities
November 7, 2014
Recently two reports have been published which made me think about the (non-existent?) public debate about synthetic biology. Jessica Mazerik and David Rejeski wrote a guide for the Wilson Center on how to communicate synthetic biology and Virgil Rerimassie and Dirk Stemerding wrote a report for the Rathenau Institute entitled ‘Synbio Politics: Bringing synthetic biology …
A green chemist’s interest in responsible research and innovation
October 27, 2014
This post was first published on Alasdair Taylor‘s blog Attheinterface on October 22, 2014. It deals with responsible research and innovation, a topic that has been explored numerous times on the Making Science Public blog. So I am pleased that Alasdair let us cross-post his post and add it to the collection! *** In the …
Responsible Research and Innovation InfoHub
September 24, 2014
In parallel with the launch of the new report Responsible Research and Innovation: Responding to a New Research Agenda, this page acts as a focus and reference point for RRI activities across the University of Nottingham. The effective implementation of RRI into research programmes requires scientists and social science practitioners in RRI to be able to …
MSP bookmarks
- Twitter May 8, 2017
- Social innovations in Europe #RRI November 3, 2015
- Harvey Graff, the undisciplinarian September 20, 2015
- Replacing Pesticides With Genetics August 31, 2015
- Addressing hazardous chemicals in the circular economy August 25, 2015
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