Responsible Research and Innovation in Academic Practice I: Institutions, Careers, Evaluation and Academic Integrity

Session Submission Type: Traditional (Closed) Panel

Abstract

In current policy imaginaries researchers are expected to respond to societal needs and ‘grand challenges’, whilst at the same time maintaining standards of scientific excellence. In Europe these calls are being invoked under the banner Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) (von Schomberg 2013). Arguably, one of the more novel aspects of the RRI discourse is in signaling a shift from the governance of risk to the governance of research and innovation itself (Felt et al 2007). Ideal-type representations thus suggest a shift away from retrospective outcomes-based modes of risk governance (associated with accountability, liability, and evidence), toward embedding future-oriented dimensions of responsibility like anticipation, care and responsiveness as core values throughout the research process (Stilgoe et al 2013, 1569). Through promoting such virtues, RRI is thought to promise ‘greater potential to accommodate uncertainty [of research and innovation] and allow reflection on purposes and values’ (ibid).
At the same time, many structural, institutional, and epistemic conditions are being widely reported which would appear inhospitable for certain modes of care and responsiveness to flourish in academic work practices. These include: hyper-competition for dwindling state resources; narrowing career opportunities; commercialization and privatization of knowledge production and scholarly communication infrastructures; epistemic demands for positive results (in some fields); perceived acceleration of academic life and a loss of time to reflect; and the rise of new metric assemblages for auditing academic performance.
This session situates how practices of anticipation, care and responsiveness play out in institutional contexts, with a focus on careers, evaluation and academic integrity.

Sub Unit

• 4S Annual Meeting

Chairs

• Maximilian Fochler, University Of Vienna

• Sarah de Rijcke, Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS)

Individual Presentations

• Irritation, care and responsibility: Nature and Science discourses on transgressions of good academic practice - Ulrike Felt, University of Vienna, Department of Science and Technology Studies

• (Re-)Disciplining Academic Careers. Caring for Interdisciplinarity and Careers in a Swedish Climate Science Research Center - Ruth Müller, MCTS TU München; Wolfgang Kaltenbrunner, Munich Center for Technology in Society (MCT

• Bridging the evaluation gap - Paul Wouters, Centre for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden University

• Responsible Research: Classical View of Scientists' Social Responsibility v.s. New Wave of RRI including Re-institutionalization - Yuko Fujigaki, University of Tokyo