Developments and limits in responsible innovation: RRI and Open Science within the ideological framework of institutionalised progress

Abstract

The institutional pursuit of responsible innovation has largely focused on controlling the negative impacts and risks of scientific and technological progress. The very dynamics of science and technology have thus tended to be approached as a self-contained phenomenon impervious to critical scrutiny. However, more recent EU science policy initiatives, such as Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) or Open Science, claim to advocate that the processes of science and innovation themselves (including the preferences and expectations underlying them) should be the subject of inclusive debate. Although they seem to be a substantial development in relation to the prevailing responsible innovation model, focused on controlling the unintended consequences and risks, their capacity to transform scientific-technological practices is also limited. They too are constrained by a normative (or ideological) horizon characterised by the assumption that techno-industrial progress is, in principle, harmonizable (compatible) with all manner of social, ecological and health-related milestones.