Methodological Meeting

GREAT -Theoretical Workshop 1

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Governance of REsponsible innovation

http://www.great-project.eu/presentation/about_great

Theoretical Workshop

Organized by the Research Center, Meaning, Ethics, Society (CNRS-University Paris Descartes)

http://cerses.shs.univ-paris5.fr/?lang=en

Organisational issues

Tuesday 23.04.2013

University Paris Descartes

PRES Sorbonne Paris Cité

http://www.sorbonne-paris-cite.fr/index.php/en

General problematization

GREAT project aim is neither to find a common definition of RRI to settle interpretative quarrels, nor to make an heterogeneous collections of the stakeholders perceptions on it. It is not even to accumulate all the existing (sometimes conflicting) key responsible activities that could be cover by a kind of meta-responsibility. If all can be useful, our ambition is bigger. We have to take into account three sorts of representations (Aristotle mimesis): a) what the things are, b) what people say they are and c) what they have to be. Because responsibility is a strong normative concept, it would have been not enough to depict existing practices (a) or to interview appropriate actors (b). Indeed, cumulative approach will let the users in front of different approaches and conception without any criteria to assess them. Moreover, the so-called axiological neutrality is useless, as moral sociologists have shown this, avoiding on the one side poor descriptivism and, on the other one, massive normative decontextualized judgement. GREAT -Theoretical Workshop 2

We have to pass from the analysis and understanding of moral (mores) to the one of ethics focused on responsibility. With a stance that focuses on the question of normativity connected to responsibility. We should be in the capacity to analyse the ways RRI, not only as a norm but with its normativity (reflexive stance in the condition of norm construction) is understood and implemented by different actors in their contexts, to be effective. This dynamic is an on-going process of adjustment between normative horizon context and between norms and values.

Thus it is too limited and arbitrary to select one definition, trying to impose it, especially in the fluctuant domains of research and innovation in its tension/complementarity with responsibility. Therefore our method will be a procedural-comprehensive (reflexive equilibrium) one, context-adaptive and normative-sensitive regarding the agents embedded. It analytically explores the possible choices to deal with the problem, with a back and forth between empirically informed and theoretical research.

In GREAT project, the question of RRI is closely connected with governance, not reduced to regulation nor democratic rules, because they are not specific enough for responsibility (ethically understood). Different forms of governance exist (delegated, educational, using participation as validation, co-responsible), implemented thanks to different institutional tools. According to us these institutional arrangements, through different kind of devices (i.e. Participatory Technological Assessment, ethical committee, forum, observatory) should be component appropriate for new institutional conditions that allow responsible reflexivity in complex context processes. Governance is focused on the framing of the context, the normative horizon used by the actors to understand their situation and the RRI normativity within it. This horizon is ethically pluralist and not only because of a fragmentation of social authorities in modern societies and the heterogeneity of normative sources or comprehensive doctrines. For this reasons, we have to consider different levels of contexts: a) real context (too rich to be depicted) of the actors, b) the conditions of its framing (reflexivity on different ways to frame it), with an intertwining of the epistemic and the normative horizon conditions. Practically the actors find the normative resources via dialectic between their rich real context and an ethical one (counterfactual) that could help them to reframe their understanding of their context and their action to change it. If the context is limited to the practical constraints, it would be inefficient to speak of responsibility or of ethics, or it will stay on a discursive level. Beyond that, different governance tools pass through different de-contextualisations and recontextulalisation (i.e. citizen conferences convening experts and citizen). That makes a plea for of a theoretical approach seeking a generality ascent tacking into account the epistemic and normative pluralism of different referential spheres (science, economy, law, ethics, personal values…).

The move of responsibility, with the notion of RRI, changes the configuration of the couple innovators - that creates problems (directly or indirectly, potential and sometimes real) - vs. opponents in society (from Civil Society Organisations or without any affiliation), laying on different conceptions of responsibility. This couple takes part in a quarrel of improvements (technological and ethical).

Therefore responsibility becomes a positive concept (with three sides). “My” actions make “me” epistemologically and ethically responsible from the very beginning in front of the others. “I” participate (commitment) when “I” act. Intersubjectivity and reflexivity let me discover the weight and load of potential consequences of my actions. This is stronger in innovation and research process. Here, the concept of full collective deliberation is perhaps a promising hypothesis in its individualistic, intersubjective and systemic (deliberative inter institutional system) dimensions matched with a co-dependant epistemic and normative evaluation on possible futures (forecast and quarrels on possibilities). GREAT -Theoretical Workshop 3

If RRI requires participation of stakeholders, this one is not flat (simple) but qualified (effective and specified). Therefore, our research question will be: what are the conditions of reflexivity while considering responsibility in innovation to be effective? Implying that we have to analyse the different patterns of governance and what they offer in term of social reflexive outputs. Indeed, participative tools or systems organize in various ways accountability and responsiveness, opening up differently responsible agents (role, capacity). And they should try to reach a relevant responsibilities sharing, to avoid dilution and poor involvements and contributions. Taking seriously governance with reflexivity in context permits - as we aim - to depart from governance of RRI to responsible governance of RRI. This move from sciences for society to science within society implicitly plays with the different meanings of responsibility: Responsible actors in responsible governance system.

This workshop is a third step after of a) the kick-off meeting (Brussels February 4th-6th, 2013), that has generated the awareness of the complexity of the problems related the RRI efficiency in contexts, and b) the different consortium partners problematisations to explicit the research object of the GREAT project. This has helped to shape this workshop and to select the external experts able to reflect on different sides of this argument and not on the limited question: What is RRI?