Responsible innovation (RI) has become a powerful tenet of the European Commission discourse on science and society. And yet, the concept has remained surprisingly under-theoretically developed by RI advocates, who appear to be more interested in investigating the ‘ingredients’ or ‘pillars’ of responsibility than the normative dimension of it. In order to fill this gap, the paper below will consider ‘moral responsibility’ in the context of supply chains and innovation networks. It will firstly scrutinize the conception of responsibility developed in corporate social responsibility (CSR) approaches and what impact this conception might have on RI. Somewhat paradoxically, CSR approaches have been neglected by most RI theorists. It will then propose a conceptual mapping of the ten different meanings of responsibility that have emerged in moral philosophy, drawing on a distinction between negative and positive conceptions. Finally, it will scrutinize possible implementation of these various meanings of responsibility in supply chains and innovation networks.

Issues concerning technological risk have increasingly become the subject of deliberative exercises involving participation of ordinary citizens. The most popular topic for deliberation has been genetically modified (GM) foods. Despite the varied circumstances of their establishment, deliberative “minipublics” almost always produce recommendations that reflect a worldview more “precautionary” than the “Promethean” outlook more common among governing elites. There are good structural reasons for this difference. Its existence raises the question of why elites sponsor mini-publics and if policy is little affected by the results of deliberations, questions the possibility of deliberative legitimation of public policy. We make this argument by looking at mini-publics (where possible, a common consensus conference design) on GM foods in France, the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and Switzerland. Deliberative legitimation becomes plausible if elites can attenuate their Promethean outlook. This is possible if ecological modernization discourse pervades their politics; Denmark provides an illustration.

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