Raising Reflexivity: STS Intervention in Scientific Governance and Practice

• In Event: Reflecting on Reflexivity in Practice: Responsible Innovation, Engagement, and Governance - III

Abstract

‘Responsible research and innovation’ and ‘co-design’/‘co-production’ have gained significant traction as frameworks or methods for better involving diverse actors, expertise, values and concerns in scientific and technological governance and conduct. Motivations for these approaches range from the STS urge to (re-)consider, democratise, and (re-)direct the world-making capacities of science and technology; to the technocratic legitimisation of existing agendas through narrowly-defined stakeholder engagement activities. Reflexivity is seen as key to the former endeavour, whether as a means of apprehending the co-constitution of the technical and the political, and/or as a step towards opening up scientific expertise and socio-technical pathways. Meanwhile, the legitimacy of STS’s normative commitment to democratisation, particularly as envisaged in deliberative engagement exercises, has been questioned (Lövbrand et al., 2011).

This paper reflects on meanings and practices of reflexivity in two cases of international research/innovation for sustainability: Future Earth, a major global sustainability science initiative aiming to coordinate, co-design and co-produce policy-relevant knowledge; and ENGICOIN, a European biotechnology consortium of academic and industrial partners aiming to apply an RRI approach to the modification of microbes for carbon dioxide reuse.

In comparing these cases and their respective reflexivities (pursued both by the author and other actors), the paper explores the possibilities and limits of STS researcher as “reflexivity inducer” (Balmer et al., 2015). It considers what responsibility social scientists should (and can) take for the interpretation and implementation of RRI and co-design/co-production, and on what basis the legitimacy of normative STS intervention in emerging science and technology can be established.

Author

• Eleanor Hadley Kershaw, University of Nottingham