Abstract

Responsible research and innovation (RRI) has emerged in recent years, especially in Europe, as a science policy framework that (a) seeks to align technological innovation with broader social values and (b) supports institutional decisions concerning the goals and trajectories of research and innovation under conditions of uncertainty, ambiguity and ignorance. Rather than relying simply on consumer choice and market mechanisms on the one hand, or risk-based regulation on the other, RRI seeks to determine what constitute the goals, purposes and trajectories of (and alternatives to) technoscience and innovation, and thus the directions towards which these should be oriented, suggesting that these should be underpinned by shared public values. In addition to this overall philosophy of RRI, the European Commission has focused on five constituent policy keys (sometimes called pillars) of RRI that have their historical roots in the Science-in-Society programme; namely societal engagement, gender in research, open access, science education, and ethics.