Designing responsible research and innovation to encourage serendipity could enhance the broader societal impacts of research

ABSTRACT

This article argues that (i) RRI should be conceived as a tool; (ii) RRI can be used to enhance the broader societal impacts of research; and (iii) designing RRI specifically to encourage serendipity is the best choice to achieve the goal of enhancing the broader societal impacts of research.

KEYWORDS:

• Responsible research and innovation
• serendipity
• broader impacts
• altmetrics
• tool
• evaluation

Acknowledgment

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

J. Britt Holbrook is an assistant professor of Philosophy in the Department of Humanities at New Jersey Institute of Technology.

ORCID

J. Britt Holbrook http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5804-0692

Additional information

Funding

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation [grant number 1445121].