Towards an alignment of activities, aspirations and stakeholders for responsible innovation

ABSTRACT

Governance of technological innovation remains challenged by the dilemma of control. Two divergent responses seek to meet this challenge. The first regulates negative impacts once evidence is gathered. The second precludes dissemination of technologies until enough is known about outcomes. Recognizing limitations of each response, scholars are increasingly exploring responsible innovation (RI), a concept that revolves around dimensions of anticipation, reflexivity, inclusion, and responsiveness. At present, current conceptualizations of RI do not address questions of “to what end?” or “how to innovate responsibly?” This paper informs RI with sustainability principles and proposes an alignment of activities, aspirations, and stakeholders with previously defined dimensions for RI. A case study on nanotechnology innovation illustrates the applicability of this framework for assessing innovation governance. The proffered idea of alignment, buttressed by insights from sustainability and adaptive management, is intended to support the practice of RI by government agencies, industry, and diverse stakeholders.

KEYWORDS:

• Responsible innovation
• governance
• sustainability
• emerging technologies

1. Introduction

Technological innovation is a social process in which people shape and are shaped by technology (Pinch and Bjiker 1987). Innovation governance – the social act of organizing and influencing the processes of innovation through multiple means – encounters three distinct, yet persistent challenges. First, by the time negative impacts of a technological system are recognized, the invested capital ends up entrenching physical infrastructure and political interests, which makes changes difficult (Collingridge 1980). Second, governance is often retrospective, coming only after large-scale technological production and dissemination degrade social and environmental systems (Rip 2009). Third, there are persistent disconnects between scientific and technological pursuits and societal needs (Sarewitz and Pielke 2007). Two divergent societal responses attempt to meet these daunting challenges. First, risk-based approaches attempt to mitigate negative impacts of technology, but only after enough evidence is gathered to warrant action. Such reactionary approaches lag behind innovation (Owen et al. 2009), rather than pro-actively ameliorate negative consequences (Brown 2009). Alternatively, precautionary approaches assert that new technologies not be broadly disseminated until enough is known to offer assurances that negative impacts will not outweigh desirable outcomes (O’Riordan and Cameron 1994). These two approaches leave policymakers with a paucity of desirable responses to the challenges of governing innovation.

Scholars are exploring an alternative middle path under the broad term of responsible innovation (RI). This path draws from constructive technology assessment (CTA) (Schot and Rip 1997), real-time technology assessment (RTTA) (Guston and Sarewitz 2002), and anticipatory governance (Guston 2008). CTA, RTTA, and anticipatory governance each encourage decision-makers to think about the future while taking actions today. RI is a concept intended to address the deficiencies of reactive governance approaches (Valdivia and Guston 2015) and is gaining momentum in European policy circles via Horizon 2020 initiatives (Rip and van Lente 2013). In the European Union (EU), specifically, the term responsible research and innovation (RRI) born from diverse academic communities has gained traction in science policy (Ribeiro, Smith, and Millar 2016). The European Union’s Rome Declaration (2014) offers six areas of focus for RRI. These foci include: public engagement, gender equality, science education, open access, ethics, and governance. In this way, RRI has drawn in prior efforts from bioethics, open science, and gender equity, in what can be understood as a political amalgamation of disparate interests underneath an ever expanding “umbrella” (Rip and Voß 2013). This expansive positioning relies on socially inclusive approaches to technology assessment and governance to mitigate inevitable societal blind spots regarding the future. However, aside from principles of deliberative democracy and gender equity, the intended outcomes are often guided by narrowly defined objectives, for example, notions of ‘good research’ from bioethics or ‘transparency’ from open science.

Returning to a broader conception of RI,¹ we note that Owen, Macnaghten, and Stilgoe (2012) advance a general argument for RI to enhance the inclusiveness, responsiveness, and distribution of responsibility for science and technology initiatives; whereas Stilgoe, Owen, and Macnaghten (2013) put forward four dimensions to scaffold the distribution of societal responsibility across a collective of corporate, government, civic, academic, and other stakeholders to make them more responsible to (and with) society:

1. Anticipation – exploring futures that denizens desire, as well as the intended and potentially unintended consequences of technologies before they are broadly disseminated;

2. Reflexivity – considering motivations, assumptions, biases, and worldviews driving innovation activities;

3. Inclusion – advancing deliberation among a diverse array of stakeholders to include alternative perspectives on and knowledge of innovation activities; and

4. Responsiveness – translating the above practices into action as concerns and opportunities are identified (Owen et al. 2013; Stilgoe, Owen, and Macnaghten 2013).

These dimensions can be been critiqued on the basis that they are overly reliant on process, in which case biased groups or the well-documented limitations of engagement may undermine the process (cf. Rowe and Frewer 2000). For instance, to the extent that this approach places a heavy burden on stakeholders, there is little guarantee that those with decision-making authority will reward their time and effort. Moreover, we are concerned that it creates an avenue for self-interested parties to hijack the stakeholder process and advance goals that harm underrepresented individuals, future generations, or ecological systems; constituencies often lacking representation or agency in stakeholder processes. Such a formulation of RI relies on the expectation that “good” practices will more often than not result in “good” outcomes without articulating the normative aspects constituting such outcomes. History is rife with examples of democratic qua “good” processes leading to unjust outcomes. This article argues for a stronger alignment between the procedural activities with aspirations for sustainability and the stakeholders that need to take substantive actions based on principles.

Others have also called for a more principled approach to RI: von Schomberg seeks to compliment such procedural reliance by emphasizing a need for normative anchors including, “(ethical) acceptability, sustainability, and societal desirability of the innovation process and its marketable products” (2013, 63). Strand et al. (2015, 5), in a report that offers performance and perception indicators for RI, articulate the need for “sustainability and social justice/inclusion” in RI considerations. Strand et al. (2015) argue that indicators need to be reinterpreted by stakeholders for their context. To a similar end, Wickson and Carew (2014) contextualize seven indicators and quality criteria for RI by bringing stakeholder perspectives to bear on the evaluation of three environmental contamination projects in Northern Europe.

While these authors and others represent a growing desire and capacity to move from a strictly procedural approach to one that operationalizes sustainability principles, it seems burdensome to expect stakeholder groups to, time and again, derive such principles. Further, it is unclear how such efforts would relate to decades of global outreach, consensus building, and public deliberation around similar principles (WCED 1987). Similar concerns have prompted justice scholars such as Rawls (1985) to favor ethical frameworks that protect the rights of minorities in the body politic that may otherwise fall victim to the tyranny of a majority. Ziegler critically interrogates Rawls’ justice perspective and brings that analysis to bear on RI with a call for “goals and impacts of innovation with a view to improving benefits to the least advantaged” (2015, 192).

Based on this short summary, we conclude that calls for RI rarely address the questions of “to what end?” and “who should be doing what to innovate responsibly?” Accordingly, the primary aim of this article is to contribute to the discourse on RI by offering an alternative framework that aligns activities, stakeholders, and sustainability aspirations for policy-relevant decision contexts. The proposed framework builds upon many of the key concepts and practices articulated by Strand et al. (2015); rather than describing them as stand-alone elements, however, we show the critical interactions and overlaps between procedural elements and substantive outcomes. In the next sections, we define “activities,” “stakeholders,” and “aspirations” before providing examples of “alignment” for RI. Subsequently, we offer a case study on nanotechnology innovation governance in Phoenix, AZ to illustrate the how this framework can be employed to assess the differences between stakeholders’ perceptions and the activities and aspirations espoused for RI. In conclusion, we elaborate how an alignment of activities, stakeholders, and aspirations helps address governance challenges at the core of innovation.

2. Aligning activities, aspirations, and stakeholders for RI

Innovation consists of social processes, often involving technology, that changes the way organizations or systems of technology are deemed useful by key social groups (Pinch and Bjiker 1987). One might artificially distinguish “technological innovation” as innovation of technological artifacts, and “social innovation” as innovation of social organizations and process; however, as science and technology scholars have stressed, the technical, social, cognitive, and other material aspects of innovation are inextricably interlinked through dynamic processes (Jasanoff 2004). Our framework builds upon prior efforts to proffer RI as a form of social innovation seeking to alter how stakeholders pursue technological innovation (de Saille 2015). In three separate pieces, Owen, Stilgoe, and Macnaghten argue for four dimensions that can support a shift towards RI (Owen, Macnaghten, and Stilgoe 2012; Owen et al. 2013; Stilgoe, Owen, and Macnaghten 2013). Subtle shifts in the language used to characterize these dimensions suggest an ongoing refinement of their overall RI framework. In the same spirit, our efforts here are meant to support the need for stronger deliberative democratic processes, while at the same time seeking to recast those procedural dimensions as activities performed by stakeholders and to align them with aspirations in a manner that supports just outcomes for future generations and ecological systems.

In the context of RI, stakeholders consist of people and organizations (comprised of people) that shape or are affected by the processes and outcomes of technological innovation (Wynne 2001). Through their presence or absence, these individuals or organizations influence decisions, perform deeds, or conduct other activities that shape the form and function of technology (Callon 1987; Pinch and Bjiker 1987). Stakeholder activities occur in concert, in competition, or in parallel and may appear disorganized or in conflict, rather than as a well-choreographed dance (Kuhlmann 2007). Aspirations – superordinate goals guiding, directing, or otherwise informing action – motivate stakeholders to work on shared problems (Gorman, Werhane, and Swami 2009). Aspirations do not necessarily prescribe or proscribe the material outcomes of innovation: energy innovation does not reduce to a single outcome, like a coal plant in the industrial revolution or, to use a contemporary example, a photovoltaic panel. Aspirations embody the values underlying innovation activities. From a sustainability perspective, aspirations for energy innovation value of balancing ecological viability with human needs today and into the future. An aspiration accrues power through its endurance and flexibility, its openness to reinterpretation and redefinition across time and across the plurality of perspectives constituting a dynamic democratic society.

2.1. Activities for RI

We posit five activities as central to RI, revisiting prior and in a few instances offering alternate terminologies. For each activity, we provide a definition, a rationale, exemplary methods for practice, and an example of the underlying logic for how the activity advances RI.

2.1.1. Anticipation

Anticipation is an activity that explores possible, plausible, and probable impacts of a technology on socio-ecological and socio-technical systems (Barben et al. 2008, 38) for the sake of informing decisions in the present (Owen, Macnaghten, and Stilgoe 2012; Owen et al. 2013; Stilgoe, Owen, and Macnaghten 2013). The concept evolved out of foresight methodologies and offers a more holistic definition of the activities that take a disposition toward the future than does the notion of prediction. Anticipation is needed to counter reactive risk management regimes that require proof of harm before taking action to remediate hazard. A variety of methods enable anticipation, including: scenario planning, prototype development and testing (Guston 2014). For a historical example, one can consider Fredrick Soddy’s actions pre WWII. Soddy was a physicist living in Czechoslovakia in the 1930s and working on nuclear weapon development. He anticipated the likely consequences of making available the knowledge created in his laboratories to the Third Reich, and thus kept his work secret and emigrated to a nation where genocide was not a moral imperative (Guston 2013). We retain the term because it offers stakeholders a chance to glimpse whether a plausible future outcome for a technology aligns or deviates from their aspirations as they make decisions in the present.

2.1.2. Engagement

Engagement entails intentional inclusion of individuals representing diverse publics and epistemic communities to innovation decision-making processes (Chilvers 2007; Delgado, Kjolberg, and Wickson 2011). Engagement is meant to expand the knowledge and values incorporated into decisions, in turn enhancing the legitimacy, relevance, and salience of decisions on technological pursuits (Cash et al. 2003). In practice, the form and function of engagement varies by application and should be tailored accordingly. Methods of engagement range from citizen forums at the national-level to public comment periods in federal rulemaking to focus groups and interviews (c.f. Macnaghten, Davies, and Kearnes 2010). In Germany, one large-scale engagement program involved hundreds of citizens in an iterative process that helped inform national science and technology policies and culminated in a report to the Prime Minister (Decker and Fleischer 2012). Engagement systematically brings to bear a diversity of perspectives (not usually represented in the organizations that traditionally take decisions) on research policy. Such inclusiveness and deliberation may help decision-makers reconsider the goals of innovation to ensure that activities adhere to a democratic qua good process and deliver on a plurality of interests and information (Owen, Macnaghten, and Stilgoe 2012; Owen et al. 2013; Stilgoe, Owen, and Macnaghten 2013). Public deliberations described by Decker and Fleischer (2012) and more general forms of public dialogue (Habermas, 1984) certainly require inclusion in order to be legitimate. Yet, we retain the term “engagement” as it emphasizes the activity that people perform, rather than the term “inclusivity” (or “inclusion”), which is one of eight criteria proposed for evaluating the quality of engagement, namely, “representativeness, inclusivity, clarity, transparency, legitimacy, adaptability, learning, and efficiency” (Chilvers 2007, 163, italic in original).

2.1.3. Coordination

Coordination entails planning, inviting, and fostering environments that bring together stakeholders in activities that support new arrangements between organizations included in, and sometimes previously excluded from, innovation governance. Coordination, while not explicitly articulated by Owen et al. (2013) or other exponents of RI, is a critical activity for achieving shared goals between individuals and organizations. For example, Stilgoe, Owen, and Macnaghten (2013, 1572) point to the role of organizations such as research councils in “bringing together researchers from numerous backgrounds” and yet leave the activity of coordination aside as if to imply that such an effort would happen spontaneously as long as the other dimensions are fulfilled. We wish to explicitly call this activity out, however, and to acknowledge the decades of scholarship on the challenges facing people from diverse disciplinary or cultural backgrounds in their attempts to work together and the conditions needed to foster “trading zones” (Gorman, Werhane, and Swami 2009) and other types of coordinated interaction. The form of coordination we argue for is one of decentralized networks of organizations that work together to define the institutions (i.e. formal and informal rules) around innovation. Coordination is, by this account, an activity that brings stakeholders together to foster the establishment of shared goals and formal policies to mitigate hazards and realize broad benefits. Decentralized coordination attends to the shortcomings of traditional centralized approaches to governance including:

1. inability to leverage local capacity for collective action (Scott 1998);

2. incapacity to maintain system integrity at increasing levels of complexity (Tainter 1988);

3. vulnerability to external stressors not accounted for by system design (Perrow 2007); and

4. tendency to privilege technical expertise (Jasanoff 2003).

Methods to enable decentralized coordination integrate knowledge across scales and bridge cultural differences, for example through boundary organizations (Guston 2001). Clark et al. (2011) identify three key criteria for boundary organizations: (i) enable broad participation (see engagement 2.1.2, above); (ii) hold organizations accountable to stakeholders; and (iii) provide relevant knowledge that can be generalized for larger contexts and specified for local contexts. Decentralized coordination offers benefits to cities or localities within networks addressing global environmental change (Ostrom 2010); may spark the formation of regional centers of excellence in science, technology and innovation around the world (Karkkainen 2011); and could help integrate knowledge from diverse networks of private and public researchers in emerging domains like international nanotechnology governance (Bernstein, Foley, and Bennett 2014). Such coordination activities avoid burden-shifting, miscommunications, and prevent failed ‘hand-offs’ between disparate stakeholders. For example, the Alternative to Slash and Burn program worked to coordinate the actions and activities of diverse stakeholders, support constructive participation and maintain accountability among the parties, all of which led to desirable outcomes for both local farmers and scientists as they worked to address agricultural practices and research (Clark et al. 2011). Coordinated governance arrangements may foster local autonomy for collective action, provide redundancy, and distribute power across a diversity of non-elite decision-makers thus building a more robust network, while enabling alignment through shared learning and experimentation. As such, decentralized coordination efforts are of critical importance to the facilitation of the other activities.

2.1.4. Reflexivity

Reflexivity involves questioning one’s actions, beliefs and assumptions, often by accepting the limits of one’s knowledge (Fisher and Rip 2013; Stilgoe, Owen, and Macnaghten 2013). Beyond knowledge of one’s own actions, reflexivity also entails consideration of underlying norms – so-called second-order reflexivity (Schön 1983). The activity of reflection is critical to learning and iterative improvement in dynamic processes like innovation (Schön 1983). A plethora of methods support reflexivity. Embedding humanists in research laboratories has been used to successfully encourage scientists to reflect upon the values underlying their decisions (Fisher 2007; Schuurbiers 2011; Flipse, van der Sanden, and Osseweijer 2013). At a larger scale, CTA convenes practitioners, researchers, and publics to reflect upon the potential outcomes of investment in innovation (Robinson 2009). At organizational scales, external or independent reviews promote reflexivity by questioning an organization’s business approach. For example internal reviews popularized by Toyota’s Kaizan business model have offered important lessons to corporations (Keyes 2013). Note, however, that reflexivity emphasizing achieving greater organizational efficiency, irrespective of that normative orientation, lacks the second-order reflection critical to RI. Combined, first and second-order reflexivity enable alignment among the actions of individuals and organizations involved in innovation, the decisions of research-policy makers, and the aspirations of society (Woolgar 1988). We retain the term reflexivity, as it embodies a set of activities that can be performed by myriad stakeholders and is essential to introspection and course correction among diverse communities.

2.1.5. Adaptation

Adaptation is similar to the notion “responsiveness” used in RI literature (cf. Owen, Macnaghten, and Stilgoe 2012; Owen et al. 2013; Stilgoe, Owen, and Macnaghten 2013), except that adaptation more directly draws upon concepts from the established literature on adaptive governance in social-ecological systems research (Walters and Holling 1990). Furthermore, responsiveness implies that people react seemingly haphazardly to their experiences of engagement or reflection. This appears to lack a forward intentionality and fails to recognize the depth of knowledge accrued in other fields that science and technology scholars might well draw upon. By contrast, adaptation encapsulates an intentional experimental approach to learning from variations in the design of rules, policies, practices, and procedures. Learning through experimentation is vital when working towards sustainability with complex systems that respond to intervention in non-linear ways (Norton 2005). Methods for adaptation range widely, and include the implementation of experimental practices with results that feed back into governance structures to scrap, re-orient or reinforce specific governance mechanisms. An example is the Ansari X-prize as set forth by the National Aerospace and Space Administration (NASA); a prize which offered $10M (USD) to the first company to execute on a specified set of performance goals for a spacecraft. A natural experiment open to comparison with other NASA initiatives, the X-prize demonstrated a means to reduce research expenditures, while realizing predefined performance goals for space exploration; lessons learned from the X-prize experiment, that is, competition-driven funding can drive down federal expenditures, have informed further US policy initiatives in appropriate contexts (Kay 2011). Adaptation supports decision-making in the face of complexity and uncertainty through continuous experimentation, learning, and iteration in pursuit of aspirations for sustainability.

2.2. Aspirations for RI

To advance the conversation in RI around “normative anchors” (von Schomberg 2013) we argue that the sustainability literature (WCED 1987; Gibson 2006) offers two overarching aspirations that can guide innovation activities: intra- and inter-generational justice. Each of these aspirations entails three dimensions: socio-ecological viability, human flourishing, and livelihood opportunity.

Socio-ecological viability pertains to the integrity of critical planetary processes and associated services (Rockström et al. 2009). Responsible innovation may support the creation of technologies that contribute to the stewardship of planetary systems identified by Rockström et al. (2009). For example, innovation around “green chemistry” (Anastas and Warner 2000) may help eliminate toxics from products or prevent irreparable alteration to nutrient cycling.

Human flourishing ensures that technological innovation affords people freedom of expression and freedom from oppression (UN 1948) and does not reinforce social orders that subjugate human beings. RI seeks to anticipate the ways opportunities for education, training, and development associated with innovation might unintentionally burden select social groups with undue occupational hazards (physical, moral, or other). (Cozzens 2011)

Livelihood opportunity refers to technological innovation that does not interfere with access to basic resources critical to a healthy human life, for example clean air, water, and food. (Maclurcan and Radywyl 2012)

These three dimensions are not separable; rather they are nested and interdependent much the way that economy, society, and environment are conceived as inextricably interrelated in sustainability science (where the economy is seen as a subset of society, and societies and their economies are seen as embedded in the environment). Similarly, the focus on socio-ecological viability is thought to encompass human flourishing and livelihood opportunities, while human flourishing is thought to encompass livelihood opportunities, and livelihood opportunities are seen as the narrowest perspective on aspirations. Aspirations of intra- and inter-generational justice enable a discourse on trade-offs (Gibson 2006) that needs to be considered during the human pursuit of progress through socio-technical endeavors. Aspirations need to be explicitly stated, contested, and negotiated to orient the procedural dimensions articulated above. Thus, we argue for aspirations to be considered in parallel with deliberative democratic processes.

2.2.1. Intra-generational justice

The aspiration of intra-generational justice encourages innovators to ask whether and how a technology affects people and ecosystems as they co-exist in the present day. Questions of intra-generational justice foreground consideration of how innovation activities are conducted and affect procedural justice (Cozzens 2011) and how the products and outcomes of technologies are experienced and distributed in a just manner (Rawls 1985; Ottinger 2013). Intra-generational concerns span spatial and organizational scales related to technological innovation, seeking to ensure that select groups of people are not inequitably burdened by negative impacts. Asking three questions can facilitate the alignment of innovation processes with the aspiration of intra-generational justice:

1. Is socio-ecological viability and integrity threatened by a current pursuit or envisioned outcomes? Does a pursuit and possible outcomes advance socio-ecological viability and integrity?

2. Is human flourishing, as measured through quality of life and freedom of expression, hindered by the current pursuit or envisioned outcomes? Does a pursuit and possible outcomes enable human flourishing?

3. Are livelihood opportunities threatened by the current pursuit or envisioned outcomes? Does a pursuit and possible outcomes foster livelihood opportunities?

Innovation processes and outcomes are likely to affect local, regional, national, continental, or global scales and interconnections. In practice, intra-generational justice must thus be pursued to counter inequitable outcomes at diverse scales. Stated as an aspiration: technological innovation should neither threaten the viability and integrity of coupled human–environment systems, nor diminish opportunities for human development and cultural expression; technological innovation should aspire to enhance the connectivity among socio-ecological viability and integrity, human flourishing, and livelihood opportunities.

2.2.2. Inter-generational justice

The aspiration for inter-generational justice encourages stakeholders to ask whether (and how) a technology may affect future generations and their environment, as such the process of anticipation is integral to accomplishing this objective. Considering inter-generational justice demands that stakeholders act to anticipate a range of futures (Guston 2014) and to use moral imagination to reflect on the implications of present actions (Gorman, Werhane, and Swami 2009). Economists speak about inter-generational justice as confronting trade-offs between near-term consumption of capital (resources human, natural, financial, technological, etc.) and investments that create future capital (Solow 1993). An underlying assumption behind these inter-temporal trade-offs is perfect substitutability among forms of capital. In practice substitutions are neither perfect nor universally desirable (Costanza and Daly 1992). Where imperfect substitutability is considered, the trade-off perspective from inter-generational justice demands that current actions afford future generations equitable access to future capital in its various forms. In this way, one interpretation is to ensure that future generations inherit viable and intact ecosystems critical to human survival. In practice, considering inter-generational justice can foster reflection on the inherent political attributes of technology, and associated implications (Winner 1986). As an aspiration, inter-generational justice helps account for how innovative technologies and changes in socio-technical systems may promote or hinder opportunities for human flourishing before path dependencies and entrenched positions (a la Collingridge [1980]) dictate a social order at the expense of future generations’ freedom.

2.3. Alignment of activities, aspirations, and stakeholders for responsible innovation

Throughout our overview of anticipation, engagement, coordination, reflexivity, and adaptation, we articulated how activities and aspirations align. Anticipation and reflexivity help stakeholders look to the future and question whether and how actions in the present may align with aspirations. Anticipation, engagement, and coordination can systematically incorporate heterogeneous groups of stakeholders across geographies and cultures to better ensure aspirations or future outcomes are inclusive. Adding adaptation to any of the above combinations provides a way to improve activities to better realize aspirations. Table 1 presents brief sentences that demonstrate alignment among activities, stakeholders, and aspirations for RI. The intent is not to present every permutation or combination, but rather to illustrate how such alignments can be systematically conceived and pursued to augment the RI framework.

Table 1. Aspirations are listed in the left rows are combined with activities in five columns; stakeholders underlined for emphasis.

		Anticipation	Engagement	Coordination	Reflexivity	Adaptation
Intra-generational Justice	Socio-ecological viability	Environmental researchers anticipate environmental health, and safety (human-based) and ecological hazards using measures of ecotoxicity, human health, and net energy once a prototype is built.	Non-profit organizations engage diverse publics to explore the connection between humankind's relationship with Earth in an effort to pursue technological innovation that offers social and ecological benefits, not just mitigation of hazards.	Networking organizations expedite coordination among decentralized stakeholders (e.g. users, regulatory, corporate, and public interests) to contribute to shared learning.	Corporate shareholders raise and move to vote on pursuing alternative modes of procurement and production that may be less ecologically damaging.	Government legislators adapt existing policies to invest tax revenue into prevention, mitigation, and remediation to address social-ecological damage caused by emerging technologies.
	Human flourishing	Engineering laboratories partner with social scientists to explore plausible long-term implications of prototypes to ameliorate equity challenges including distributive justice in the design.	Science museums offer publics an equal opportunity to engage with technological innovation to contribute to shared learning between experts and non-experts, rather than unidirectional, enlightenment approaches.	Public-private partners coordinate activities to address equality challenges by implementing strategies that continue to recognize new challenges as they arise.	Funding organizations support public laboratories to integrate social science and humanities perspectives into their research.	Government regulators rescind financial ‘fail safes’ against catastrophic loses and instead place the burden of catastrophic loses on liable organizations and their insurers.
	Livelihood opportunity	Government funders sponsor research that promotes social benefits, such as pro-poor technologies and employment training with future benefits in mind.	Social scientists facilitate participatory technology assessments to explore how emerging technologies contribute to human flourishing across diverse social groups.	Economic development offices organize coordinated problem-solving activities around science, technology and innovation clusters in an effort to afford livelihood opportunities to their diverse regional population.	Funding organizations account for “better life” criteria for impoverished and historically disadvantaged communities during the evaluation of funded projects.	Private corporations disclose and disseminate all hazard analysis and assessment data in technical & non-technical language to increase shared learning and take corrective actions if unacceptable hazards are recognized.
Inter-generational justice		Non-profit organizations support problem-solving approaches that keep options for future development open by maintaining processes that avoid lock-in to sub-optimal solutions.	Government program managers fund researchers to conduct public dialogues that explore a wide range of future implications of investments into technological innovations.	Networking organizations feed knowledge from regional networks into hazard mitigation mechanisms – that is, regulation, standards, or insurance efforts.	Laboratory scientists use scenarios to uncover tacit assumptions and reflect upon the applications and implications of their own research.	Government regulators enact policies that incorporate learning and adaptation as technology is disseminated, moving to support consistent monitoring and research on latent hazards.

3. Case study – nanotechnology innovation and governance in Phoenix, Arizona

3.1. Case context

The framework offered above has utility as an assessment tool to understand the extent to which deliberative democratic processes and sustainability aspirations might align with activities of RI. We demonstrate such utility through a brief case study that draws evidence from interviews with stakeholders involved in the governance of nanotechnology innovation in Phoenix, Arizona. Review of the of data collected offers an understanding of the perceived importance of responsibilities held by innovation stakeholders. We first introduce the case context and methods, subsequently sharing and discussing the findings of the study.

The governance of socio-technical innovation operates within metropolitan regions that can be delineated and characterized by form and function (Avnimelech and Feldman 2010). Metropolitan Phoenix ranks in the top 25 of US cities for patenting and publications (Rothwell et al. 2013) and was classified as a late entrant to nanotechnology development (Youtie and Shapira 2011). Nanotechnology investments in Phoenix include research and development capacity in microelectronics (Glasmeir 1988), a node in the National Nanofabrication Infrastructure Network, and hub for nano-pharmaceutical production (Roco et al. 2011). In Phoenix, stakeholders involved with nanotechnology innovation hail from academic, industrial, and government funding enterprises (i.e. the classic ‘triple helix’) and operate within constraints offered by distinct legal, political, knowledge, and resource limits (Foley and Wiek 2013). There are few linkages between the stakeholders working in different product-based sectors (e.g. energy, water, and health) as well as disconnects between the organizations that regulate risks, including civic non-profits, government regulators and insurers in this social network (Foley and Wiek 2013).

This case study illustrates how the framework presented above can be used to assess the perceived importance of stakeholders, activities, and aspirations within a defined context. Our intent is to illustrate how our operationalization of the proposed RI framework can identify blind spots (weaknesses) and areas of focus (strengths) for advancing RI within a specific region or of an emerging technology.

3.2. Design and methodology

The site was selected based on the close proximity of the research team to Phoenix, their position within a center charged with studying nanotechnology in society, and the framing of nanotechnology as a broad, enabling technology that cut across numerous sectors of the urban economy. Proximity allowed for repeated research interactions with the network of stakeholders involved in nanotechnology innovation in Phoenix. As highlighted above, there is a geographic concentration in metropolitan Phoenix of nanotechnology-focused entities in six sectors: renewable energy, personalized medicine, electronics and semi-conductors, aerospace and defense, automobile enhancements, and water decontamination (Foley and Wiek 2013). In the present case we revisit interview data from 45 individuals drawn from a pool 400 organizations identified as working directly with or in support of nanotechnology innovation. The interview sample was intentionally constructed to represent categories of key “economic sectors and social functions” according to a multi-agent network and public policy analysis of nanotechnology development in Switzerland (Wiek et al. 2007, 390). This intentional grouping was made for its aptness to the US context and to allow for future comparative study. The interviews involved: five academic administrators, nine academic researchers, six business consultants and lawyers, six government funders, two government regulators, nine industrial leaders and entrepreneurs, one insurer, three private investors, two non-profit organization representatives, and two technology reporters (media).

Interviewees were asked to narrate their experience with nanotechnology innovation and identify other key stakeholders. Next, interviewees were asked to articulate responsibilities in response to the following: (i) What are you responsible for?; (ii) What is [identified stakeholder] responsible for? People’s responses to these questions were analyzed as indicative of perceived responsibilities associated with nanotechnology governance in Phoenix. This technique mirrors earlier efforts to elicit self- and other-perceived responsibilities for nanotechnology innovation (Wiek et al. 2007). The participants’ statements on responsibility express both activities and aspirations for the governance of an emerging technology.

We sought to analyze the activities and aspirations expressed by different stakeholders to enable an assessment of the gap between perceived responsibilities and those articulated by the modified RI framework, presented above. Thus, our case study employs what Strand et al. (2015) term “perception indicators” derived from interviews to assess innovation governance of nanotechnology in Phoenix (note, this is but one of several indicators that can be used to assess RI). Participants’ statements about responsibility are not to be confused with demonstrable actions or outputs, which would indicate the performance of RI. We acknowledge that perception indicators are flawed when used in isolation (cf. Strand et al. (2015) for a review); however, combining perceptions and performance indicators is a challenge for emerging technologies, where outcomes, as yet, do not exist or are uncertain and activities may not be routinized. Thus, perceptions can inform real-time monitoring and be feedback into the governance regime.

Discrete statements on stakeholders’ responsibility were captured from the interviews and coded for content related to types of aspirations and activities. Coding took place in two different sessions. A first session involved interdisciplinary group of 12 graduate students who worked for two-days to perform a content analysis following Krippendorff (1980) and Stemler (2001). Statements were coded based on a priori concepts drawn from sustainability theory (Kates et al. 2001; Gibson 2006). Analysts coded for the intra-generational justice aspect of sustainability in terms of socio-ecological viability (SE), human flourishing (S), livelihood opportunity (L), and inter-generational justice (F). Because the primary goal for nanotechnology innovation expressed by participants (43 of 45 interviews) was to create commercial value (c.f. Foley and Wiek 2013), statements related to perceived standards in practice – for example, “lawyers should file patent applications” (Industry, no. 1) – were coded as (L) for livelihood opportunity. Codes for SE, S, and L were mutually exclusive, each statement receiving only one of the three codes because socio-ecological viability is inclusive of human flourishing, which in turn is inclusive of livelihood opportunities (see the above explanation for inter-generational justice).

A second coding session, devoted to the activities, was completed after the framework (see Table 1) was finalized. Statements were coded using the definitions of the five activities: anticipation (F), engagement (E); collaboration (C); adaptation (A); and reflexivity (R). Content analysis of the statements was conducted in a consensus process; Foley coded with Bernstein independently verifying assigned codes. Dissenting opinions were resolved, leading to the final consensus codes reported below. Because of an inextricable connection between the content of inter-generational justice and of anticipation, the code (F) was used as a proxy for both anticipation and inter-generational justice. In analysis, the eight codes reflecting aspirations and activities (SE, S, L, F, E, C, A, R) were not considered to be mutually exclusive; statements were assigned as few as one code and as many as eight codes, depending on the explicit reference to activities.

The results, reported below, are descriptive counts and percentages for activities and aspirations. Due to the study’s sample size, no advanced inferential statistical analyses is warranted. Still, the present description offers what the authors believe is a first-of-its-kind approach to assessing the presence, absence, and co-appearance of collective responsibilities for innovation governance by assessing statements of responsibility as perception indicators against the broad framing of RI in a systematic manner.

3.3. Case results

A total of 965 stakeholder statements on perceptions of responsibility for nanotechnology governance were expressed and coded. Expressions of the aspiration to afford livelihood opportunity (L) comprised 86% of statements (n = 830), while human flourishing (S) and socio-ecological (SE) accounted for 8.5% (n = 82) and 5.5% (n = 53), respectively (see Figure 1, Table 2). Expressions of the aspiration for nanotechnology innovation to afford livelihood opportunity make up the majority of the dataset with 830 of the 965 (or 86%) statements. Almost two-thirds of the total statements mirrored activities that can be defined as “role responsibilities” or professional responsibilities defined by von Schomberg (2013). We interpreted role responsibilities as those generally involved with business-as-usual innovation for profit generating activities, which is the dominate narrative for technological innovation (Foley and Wiek 2013), rather than activities associated with RI. The activity that most frequently aligned with livelihood aspirations is coordination (n = 112) as expressed by statements of “building networks,” “sharing information,” and “aligning resources.” The other two commonly perceived activities that aligned with livelihood opportunities are reflexivity (n = 34) and adaptation (n = 30). The combination of coordination, reflexivity, and adaptation suggests a powerful governance design to optimize a particular aspiration. Anticipation activities and livelihood aspirations were never aligned, which highlights a bias towards short-term, profit-driven motivations and suggests a critical gap and need for RI.

Figure 1. Proportional breakdown of statements of responsibility. Aspirational codes, divided into socio-ecological viability, human flourishing, and livelihood opportunity, shown in the pie chart. Bar chart above each pie segment displays the alignment of activities, Anticipation, Reflexivity, Coordination, Engagement, and Adaptation) with a given aspiration and role responsibilities (Role Res.). Note: Table 2 presents the data that support this graphic.

Table 2. Total activities associated with each aspiration, as reported in the bar charts of Figure 1. Note: Statements were coded for more than one activity, but only one aspiration.

		Anticipation (F)	Engagement (E)	Coordination (C)	Reflexivity (R)	Adaptation (A)	Role Responsibility	Total
Intra-generational Justice	Socio-ecological viability (SE)	20	12	0	1	25	0	53
	Human flourishing (S)	13	12	27	18	12	0	82
	Livelihood Opportunity (L)	0	4	112	34	30	650	830

The next most common aspiration expressed by interview participants was for human flourishing, present in 82 statements (8.5%). All five RI activities aligned with human flourishing, demonstrating how engagement, coordination, reflection, adaptation, and anticipation can co-occur to advance RI aspirations. Statements expressing aspirations for socio-ecological viability were recognized in 53 statements (or 5.5%). Analysis reveals that adaptation and anticipation were most strongly aligned with socio-ecological viability, as exemplified in statements like, “Advocacy organizations should promote businesses that promote new, green business initiatives” (Non-profit organization, no. 2).

The distribution of responsibilities across the stakeholder groups highlights the importance of government funders, academic researchers, non-profit organizations and industry, see Table 3. Coordination was the most frequently mentioned activity (n = 137) with non-profits most often perceived as responsible for coordination activities, thus reinforcing the need to capture these activities in the framework. Adaptation was often most often assigned to government regulators (n = 20), expressed as, “Establish regulations to protect human health, safety, and environmental quality” (Consultant, No. 5). Academic researchers were often assigned the activities associated with reflexivity (n = 18) expressed as, “Understand application of knowledge to address human challenges or market gap” (Academic researcher, No. 1). Insurers were assigned the fewest responsibilities (n = 4) such as, “Assess and structure risk management” (Insurer, No. 1).

Table 3. Activities assigned to stakeholders. Bottom row totals activities, while the right column reports the total activities assigned to each stakeholder group, sorted highest to lowest by activity and stakeholder.

	Responsibilities by Activity					by stakeholder
	Coordination	Adaptation	Reflexivity	Anticipation	Engagement
Governmental funders	30	13	7	8	5	63
Academic researchers	28	1	18	3	3	53
Non-profit organizations	33	6	1	3	3	46
Industry	14	8	0	13	4	39
Citizens	3	8	10	4	6	31
Government regulators	6	20	0	0	0	26
Academic administrators	15	2	4	0	0	21
Consultants and lawyers	5	7	6	2	0	20
Private investors	1	0	12	0	0	13
Media	2	0	2	0	7	11
Insurers	0	2	2	0	0	4
Totals	137	67	62	33	28

3.4. Case discussion

Although interview participants were not prompted with sustainability or RI language, the results offer evidence of an overemphasis on livelihood opportunity and minimal recognition for human flourishing and socio-ecological viability and those activities that are understood to support those aspirations, shown in Figure 1. What this immediately demonstrates is that applying the framework in this way supports analysis of the practice of innovation governance and the procedural and substantive outcomes that stakeholders recognize as important. It is essential for RI to become a shared concept between theorists and practitioners; if RI is to affect changes in the practice of innovation governance, there is a need to develop analytical tools usable for both parties. As we discuss in the next two paragraphs, the evidence from this case suggests that use of the modified RI framework can:

1. reveal governance mechanisms that confront the triad of challenges reviewed in the introduction; and

2. identify opportunities that enable RI and ways for challenges to be reframed.

The framework reveals a triad of governance challenges. To start with, the perceived importance of role responsibilities for nanotechnology innovation to generate revenue, which is carried over from learned experiences, shows how entrenched behaviors are connected to investments in physical infrastructure (e.g. laboratories) that are believed to support livelihood opportunities. RI faces an uphill climb to confront the cognitive, social, and physical constructs that dominate current technological innovation practices. The second challenge is revealed by the lack of coordination and engagement activities that are aligned with aspirations for socio-ecological viability. This suggests that consideration of future impacts are discounted and delegated to particular groups of stakeholders, rather than distributed across the innovation networks. Further, perceptions that government regulators can only respond after nanotechnology creates negative outcomes demonstrates that this framework, employed in analyses, can reveal retrospective governance approaches. Finally, a lack of recognition for the influence of insurers stands in stark contrast to the state-of-the-art in RI, which specifically highlights how insurers can be actively involved in anticipation of and adaptation to potential outcomes of innovation (Owen et al. 2009). The third challenge is observed in the disconnects between societal needs and technological innovation present in the evidence of a desire to create wealth before considering human or ecological benefits. This is a general trend in nanotechnology innovation where the promises of broad benefits (Salamanca-Buentello et al. 2005) are not delivered, leaving massive gaps in societal need unaddressed (Cozzens et al. 2013).

Despite the challenges that are evident, the nanotechnology governance regime in Phoenix shows instances of (and open opportunities for) activities and aspirations that are aligned in support of RI. The brightest example was the broad spectrum of activities that the participants offered in support of the aspirations for human flourishing. The alignment of stakeholders, activities, and aspirations in this case suggests that innovation governance as a set of distributed responsibilities that are held collectively and not by an individual person or organization is engrained in practitioners’ thoughts. Using this reality as a starting point, we note that a pragmatic approach to advancing RI might include building on these distributed networks of responsibility to foster greater balance in capacities and aspirations. Coordination to capitalize on market opportunities should come as no surprise in an innovation regime dominated by profit motives; yet the explicit attention of stakeholders to coordination further validates the importance of including and leveraging this activity in conversations about RI. Returning to Robinson (2009), the case demonstrates the value of the framework to engage with stakeholders “responsible for doing innovation” and also reveal a challenge associated with motivating stakeholders to “do innovation responsibly.” The high recognition for coordination suggests the potential of leveraging the existing networking between stakeholders “responsible for innovation” to advance activities of anticipation, engagement, reflexivity, and adaptation to strengthen more diverse and forward-looking aspirations such as public value (Bozeman and Sarewitz 2011), social equity (Cozzens 2011), and socio-ecological viability (Rockström et al. 2009). Existing networks present opportunities to disseminate information or, though workshops, build capacity around RI activities such as considering alternative aspirations for nanotechnology development.

4. Discussion

RI is gaining traction as a middle path to guide innovation governance, yet an overreliance on procedures remains vulnerable to political hijacking and the advancement of unjust outcomes for people and the planet. Where initial proponents of RI often avoid normative questions, we argue that the dance of science, technology, and innovation – as eloquently articulated by Kuhlmann (2007) – would benefit from a choreography that explicitly attempts to align stakeholders’ activities and societal aspirations. In this way, we build upon the procedural dimensions put forth by Owen et al. (2013) with substantive notions from von Schomberg’s (2013) call for “normative anchors” and Ziegler’s (2015) justice argument to consider intra- and inter-generational justice that balances trade-off between livelihood opportunities, human flourishing, and socio-ecological viability. The resultant framework offers a starting point for contestations and negotiations to commence stakeholder engagement with, rather than demanding rediscovery of, these principles. This paper thus presents a systematic means to analyze, design, and refine innovation governance regimes in the pursuit of stewardship for today and “care for the future” (p. 1570; Stilgoe, Owen, and Macnaghten 2013). The framework offers a way to empirically benchmark stakeholder perceptions of current governance regimes against a matrix of procedural activities and substantive outcomes, as the case study of Phoenix highlights. Table 1 offers a tapestry of activities that could, in future work, be investigated as processes that involve “innovating responsibly” (Robinson 2009) and affecting outcomes with positive results for people and the planet.

Where RI scholars have pointed the way, we have taken up insights from sustainability and adaptive management. The shift from “responsiveness” to “adaption” suggests a shift from stakeholders reacting to engagements with diverse groups (responsiveness) to intentionally experimenting with rules-of-use, shared learning and iterative design (adaptation). Adaptation more clearly attends to the governance challenge wrought by entrenchment by not over-investing in one solution; taking a proactive, experimental approach to the implementation of novel solutions; and bridging science-society divides through shared learning between experts and non-experts. The activities offered here can also be used by internal stakeholders to anticipate plausible impacts of technology in advance of full-scale production. For example, to ensure socio-ecological viability an iterative process can use such tools as life cycle assessment to continuously monitor and learn from outcomes during processes (Wender et al. 2014). By enriching the aspirations associated with innovation to account for human flourishing, livelihood, and socio-ecological viability today and into the future, we seek to expand the opportunity space for scientific and technological innovation activities to advance society in ways beyond simply contributing to economic growth.

4.1. Tangible examples and other necessary next steps

Further conceptual, empirical, and practical efforts are needed to strengthen this work. First, one of the main areas for further attention is to specify the general concepts, presented here, into yet more tangible guidelines. The statements in Table 1 represent a necessarily incomplete and abstracted sample of a much larger suite of illustrations that could be developed. In October 2014, the Woodrow Wilson Center hosted a workshop titled, “Responsible Research and Innovation in Synthetic Biology” and the facilitators closed with the question: Who can do what to advance responsible innovation? Our elaboration of the framework in Table 1 offers an initial attempt to map how stakeholders, activities, and aspirations align to advance RI.

Second, pertaining specifically to the case study, the overlap between inter-generational justice and anticipation creates a gap in analysis. The statements that were coded (F) demonstrate that stakeholders are considering futures; yet what is not clear is to what extent those considerations are aimed at inter-generational justice. There is plenty of conceptual work to differentiate the two. For example, anticipation explores questions of what are plausible scenarios that can inform present decisions (Selin 2011; Wiek et al. 2013). By contrast, inter-generational justice is an underlying value for visioning exercises that address questions of what the future should be and how societies might work to realize such a future (Shipley 2002; Robinson et al. 2011). The framing of the question to the interviewees did not capture data that could be clearly parsed between these two framings on the question. Additional research is needed to incorporate both anticipation and inter-generational justice in the analysis of innovation governance, which presented a methodological challenge for our analysis.

Third, the proposed conceptual framework would benefit from more work to explore the current practices of industry to innovate responsibly. Work by Shelley-Egan and Davies (2013) to describe how industries are attempting to operationalize RI exemplify this line of research (cf. Flipse, van der Sanden, and Osseweijer 2013). In our case study, 67% of activities were deemed “role responsibilities” and de facto aligned with livelihood aspirations. If such de facto sets of role responsibilities compose the majority of innovation activities, then a RI framework will need to provide a more thorough accounting of what these role responsibilities entail. Making these role responsibilities legible in terms of RI would be a critical step toward better understanding how current governance structures are misaligned with RI and, perhaps more importantly, which activities already in practice could be repurposed to better align with RI aspirations.

Another area for development is to ensure that assessments employing this framework (or other frameworks) avoid becoming deontological afterthoughts; mere check-box activities for parties that wish to improve an otherwise arbitrary RI “score” (cf., the RRI Funder Requirements Matrix [Engelhard et al. 2014]). Our case study highlights how stakeholders involved with Phoenix nanotechnology governance subscribe to a ‘status quo’ moral division of labor for RI (Rip 2014): the government will regulate and non-profits will coordinate, while businesses innovate. Advancing RI in a way that truly re-examines and re-apportions the moral division of labor for technological innovation may require deeper exploration. For example, if engagement activities are under consideration, thoughtfully accounting for the who, why, and how of the activity, as well as its relevance to actual decision-making or research (versus publicity stunting) is vital in the “age of engagement” (Delgado, Kjolberg, and Wickson 2011).

The benefit of an amended RI framework that aligns activities and aspirations is that it extends beyond capacity building and assessment and moves directly into policy analysis and design. To demonstrate this, one can look at the 2012 recommendations by the European Commission’s Directorate General for Research and Innovation (Zaneta et al. 2012). The report deals with privacy protection, yet each of the twelve recommendations articulates a clear aspiration aligned with an activity meant to advance privacy. Recommendation six states: “The European Commission should strengthen its own understanding of and commitment to privacy as a fundamental human right while promoting its recognition in a global context” (Zaneta et al. 2012, 5). Recommendation six thus aligns the aspiration of human flourishing (“fundamental human rights”) with the activity of reflexivity (“strengthen its own understanding of”). Such an alignment renders the Commission’s recommendations more legible, allowing policy analysts to take a synoptic view of the implications and ask: Have these recommendations sufficiently provisioned for, or considered other policies that would enable a broad-based approach to RI?

5. Conclusion

In this article, we sought to inform innovation governance by proposing an alignment of activities, aspirations, and stakeholders to augment the conversations around RI. Refinements to the concept of RI were comprised of activities aligned with adaptive governance and aspirations drawn from sustainability. We discussed the need to explicitly match activities of RI with anchoring aspirations. In addition, specific stakeholder groups were identified and aligned with RI activities and aspirations. The case study of nanotechnology innovation in Phoenix, Arizona illustrated the benefit of empirically validating the augmented framework, and using it as an assessment tool, despite the limitations of perception indicators. If emerging technologies are to meet the needs of current generations without diminishing the opportunities available to future generations, aspirations must be recognized and aligned with innovation activities through improved governance mechanisms. Our operationally focused framework for RI takes governance of innovation a step in that direction.

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the insightful comments of our two peer reviewers on earlier versions of this manuscript and the guidance and editorial support that strengthened the message of this research. The authors would also like to thank the graduate students from Arizona State University that assisted in data analysis and editing: C. Antaya, C. Bausch, A. Berardy, M. Burnham-Fink, N. Forest, J. Harlow, T. Hottle, R. Kutter, C. Kuzdas, S. Lidberg, C. Monfrieda, J. Sadowski, and B. Warner. The findings and observations contained in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Rider W. Foley is an assistant professor in the science, technology & society program in the Department of Engineering and Society at the University of Virginia. His research interests attend to wicked problems at the intersection of society and technology. Rider holds a Ph.D. in sustainability from Arizona State University, and a Master’s degree from Harvard University and a Bachelor’s degree from University of New Hampshire. Before earning his doctorate, he worked for a decade in consulting and emergency response.

Michael J. Bernstein is currently a doctoral candidate at the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University. His research looks at interventions into complex systems. For this presentation, Michael will draw upon his research with urban communities. Michael is a graduate research assistant with the Center for Nanotechnology in Society and is studying public values in science policy.

Arnim Wiek is an Associate Professor in the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University and the head of the Sustainability Transition and Intervention Research Lab. His research group conducts sustainability research on emerging technologies, urban development, resource governance, climate change, and public health in USA, Canada, different European countries, Sri Lanka, Mexico, and Costa Rica. The group develops evidence-supported solutions to sustainability challenges in close collaboration with government, businesses, and community groups. Dr. Wiek holds a Ph.D. in environmental sciences from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, and a Master’s degree in philosophy from the Free University Berlin. He had research and teaching engagements at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, the University of Tokyo, and Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany.

ORCID

Rider W. Foley http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9362-8790

Additional information

Funding

This research was undertaken with support by CNS-ASU, funded by the National Science Foundation (cooperative agreement #0531194 and #0937591).

Notes

1. In the rest of this article, we use this broader term of responsible innovation to step back from the deployment of RRI in the European Union policy context. See Owen, Macnaghten, and Stilgoe (2012) for a more detailed discussion of the differences between the terms.