Devices and trajectories of responsible innovation: problematising synthetic biology

Abstract

This paper focuses on the ‘devices’ of responsible innovation, that is, the material and discursive assemblages that serve to enact the ideal of responsible innovation (such as policy frameworks and public debates). It proposes an analytical approach and research questions to study the trajectories of these devices via their concretisation, institutionalisation, do-ability and the criticisms they raise.

Keywords:

• responsible innovation
• devices
• science policy
• public debates
• synthetic biology
• institutionalisation

This paper reflects on the process of responsibilisation of scientific innovation. It focuses on the ‘devices’ of responsible innovation, that is, the material and discursive assemblages that serve to enact the ideal of responsible innovation.¹ In the field of synthetic biology, a variety of such devices can be observed: be it in the making of public policies and debates, via the ELSI framework (ethical, legal and social issues) and calls for a post-ELSI framework, or the ‘human practices’ component at the iGEM competition. Drawing on empirical material from France and the UK, this paper considers two specific sites: how the notion of responsible innovation is operationalised through public policy and how public debates are organised, legitimised and delegitimised. Several research questions for further academic work are suggested.

How is responsible innovation made do-able?

The European Commission seeks to foster responsible innovation in the sciences (i.e. in nanotechnology, information and communication technologies, life sciences, biotechnology) and its Science in Society work programme for 2014–2020 contains a responsible research and innovation component. The term has come to function as a contact zone across the sciences, and it can be meaningful for both natural and social scientists as it can serve as a ‘boundary object’ (Star and Griesemer 1989). Its key advantage is arguably the fact that, unlike terms such as ‘acceptability’, it can capture the interactive features and dynamics of science, in which societal concerns and issues need to be addressed right from the start (and thus move beyond a linear vision of science as a neutral activity that only has economic and societal consequences once it leaves the laboratory). Despite its relative prominence and circulation across various academic domains, countries and policy circles, the ways in which it has been adopted across countries nonetheless varies.

In the UK, for instance, the term has been gaining credence among funding bodies (Meyer and Molyneux-Hodgson, forthcoming). One funder, the Technology Strategy Board, has developed a ‘responsible innovation framework’ and applicants to the Board must indicate how they will address aspects of ‘good scientific practice’ and engage with stakeholders. Scientists are asked to ‘make responsible innovation their own’ and ‘demonstrate that they have considered whether there are any ethical issues associated with the conduct of the research, and if so, that they have addressed them’. By asking researchers to reflect about ethical issues, anticipate impacts and promote public engagement, funders are providing an explicit set of norms and values. In France, by contrast, the term has been debated on a more general level. In France's major policy report on synthetic biology (OPECST 2012), the discussion about responsible innovation relies on arguments around responsible management and the principle of precaution taken from two other reports: the 2010 report by the US Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues and the 2009 report by the European Group of Ethics. A narrow definition of responsible innovation is given and the notion is briefly discussed and revolves merely around the issues of safety and security. French public authorities have made, so far, rather broad statements about the importance of the ‘progress of synthetic biology’ taking place in ‘a climate of civic trust and clearly responsible innovation’ and that the ‘confidence of citizen’ demands a transparency of research (SNRI 2011, 15). Even though there are calls for a ‘responsibilization of researchers’ via a code of conduct (SNRI 2011, 17), such a code has yet to materialise.

It should thus come as no surprise that such a lack of consequences has been criticised. The uptake of the concept of responsibility in the field of synthetic biology has been depicted as vague and without real practical consequences and political considerations (Grunwald 2012). Two avenues for further empirical work thus open up. First, the vagueness of the term can be further analysed – the social sciences can thus provide comparative and critical assessments of the ways in which responsible innovation is defined. Second, the practical effects and trajectories (such as the UK's responsible innovation framework) can be empirically traced. Research questions include: How will the idea of responsible innovation be institutionalised, both politically and scientifically? What kinds of devices – such as ethical reviews, codes of conduct, or other frameworks – will be created and circulated to enable responsible innovation in synthetic biology?

Debating synthetic biology, a ‘collective responsibility’

The necessity to organise a dialogue between science and society has been highlighted by French public authorities who call for a ‘real’ and ‘transparent’ dialogue and a ‘serene’ and ‘peaceful’ debate (SNRI 2011; OPECST 2012). (The public dialogue on synthetic biology held in the UK in 2009/2010 is the main reference point for France and is called the most ‘complete’ process of its kind.) Organising such a ‘pacified’ dialogue is seen as a ‘collective responsibility’. An Observatory of Synthetic Biology was thus set up in 2012 as a ‘place of experimentation’ for a science-society dialogue. And a Forum of Synthetic Biology was launched in 2013, conceived by its organisers as a ‘space of open and pluralistic debate’ in order to favour an ‘enlightened and constructive discussion’.

The first public debate of this Forum of Synthetic Biology took place in April 2013. But a few minutes into the debate, it was interrupted by a group critical of technoscience and industry called Pièces et Main d’œuvre (PMO). To block the debate, they used various methods: they showed posters (e.g. ‘Participating is accepting’), revealed a banner (‘No to synthetic life’), repeated slogans (e.g. ‘false debate, we do not participate’), made noise, read a declaration, distributed pamphlets and told people to go home. PMO is an ‘indivisible’ actor who does not want to negotiate nor discuss – ‘Our position is already fixed: we do not accept’ (pamphlet) – and who criticizes concepts such as responsible innovation and technical democracy.² Its position is at the opposite of that of the Observatory and the Forum who consider themselves as spaces of dialogue, debate and deliberation – thereby favoring ‘divisible’ conflicts. An analysis of actors’ criticisms and positioning forces scholars to rethink and unpack terms such as debate and participation. It forces scholars to problematise such terms, that is, to step back and transform something given into a question (on the notion of problematisation see Foucault 1984). Concepts such as participation and responsible innovation are not politically and morally neutral.

How does responsible innovation travel?

The term responsible innovation provides a connection between the individual called to behave responsibly and innovation, a collective process (Thoreau 2012, 292). In this essay, we have encountered several entanglements between the individual and the collective: calls for a responsibilisation of researchers, discussions about codes of conduct, settings such as observatories and public forums. This interactional characteristic of responsible innovation is sociologically interesting for it brings together the individual and the institutional, agency and structure. As such, responsible innovation poses a challenge: how can responsibility been pinpointed and constituted, given that innovation is arguably distributed and supra-national? We thus need to think of responsible innovation in terms of the devices through which it travels and materialises. Despite its intangible character – and criticisms that it is a vague principle and empty catch-phrase – responsible innovation materialises in specific sites. At policy level responsible innovation is explained, cited, discussed, promulgated and idealised through written reports and frameworks. Public debates are established and publicised in space: they take place in specific buildings/rooms, are organised and funded by given institutions, attended by members of the public and refer to particular nations. Both public debates and public policies also travel in between spaces and fields, that is, among different countries and from nanotechnology to synthetic biology. The circulations, translations and mobilities of these devices are the substance of responsible innovation. The future career and trajectories of the term responsible innovation – its concretisation, institutionalisation, do-ability and the criticisms it raises – is thus a promising venture for future analytical work. The question is perhaps not so much what responsible innovation is, but rather what it does and how it travels.

Acknowledgements

An earlier draft of this piece was presented at a conference on responsible innovation at Mines ParisTech in September 2013. Thanks are due to Fern Wickson, François Thoreau and Brice Laurent for discussions and comments.

Notes on contributor

Morgan Meyer is a lecturer at Agro ParisTech, holds a Ph.D. in sociology (Sheffield) and has been a postdoc at the Centre for the Sociology of Innovation at Mines ParisTech. His research focuses on the emergence, governance and debates on new forms of biology (synthetic biology, do-it-yourself biology), the spaces and practices of knowledge brokering, and the boundaries of science.

Notes

1. On the notion of devices see Callon, Millo, and Muniesa (2007) and Marres and Lezaun (2011).

2. To understand the different actors and critiques made, the distinction between ‘divisible’ and ‘indivisible’ conflicts is useful: ‘While the first are well suited for negotiation and are usually resolved through solutions of compromise, the second ones are much more recalcitrant’ writes Barthe (2005, 4), drawing on Hirschman (1994).