Comparison of Imaginaries Across Countries and Wider Implications

Abstract

In Part II of the book we asked why RRI develops differently in different national contexts. We argued that this is because RRI can be regarded as a model of the relation between science and society. As all studied countries have established STI systems, all of them have different imaginaries that cover this relationship, though these are not always fully explicit. National imaginaries have different features for different reasons. They cannot simply be ordered on a linear scale of ‘progression’ towards RRI (Mejlgaard et al. 2018). RRI promotors have to engage with these imaginaries in order to properly align RRI with them. We have illustrated our claim by studying twelve countries’ sociotechnical imaginaries on STI in Chap. 7, using RRI-Practice’s national reports as data. In this chapter we compare and abstract from the national sociotechnical imaginaries on STI. While some policy goals and participation models are common across many countries, there are also salient differences with regards to policy goals, framings of the responsibilities of scientists, administrative styles and public participation goals and mechanisms. We sketch salient differences and how they matter for the implementation of the ‘RRI model’.