There is growing interest in a framework for responsible research and innovation within Europe. This paper explores why this has come about and suggests that it is related to a concern with emerging and converging technologies that goes beyond a narrow conception of risk to the environment or to human health. Rather, there is a trepidation arising out of the transformative capacity of modern technologies and their stated aspiration to manipulate the natural world. In this context, the paper poses three central questions about the shape of any framework for responsible research and innovation. First, why is the target that of research and innovation? Secondly, at what scale should the framework operate? Thirdly, what form of governance structure would be best suited to the oversight of research and innovation?

The usual excuse for regulation is the failure of market provision. This paper examines legal services and suggests that, in the case of provision of commercial legal services to corporate clients, true events of market failure, to support the case for regulation, and more particularly self-regulation, are hard to locate. It further argues that the market for legal services is heavily stratified with a commercial legal services market effectively operating quite separately to that of professional legal services for private clients. In consequence, it may be more effective and proportionate to adopt differentiated strategies of regulation. This might be achieved by shifting the focus of regulation away from the individual practitioner, as is historically the case, towards law firms as such. This simple step, it is suggested, could facilitate much greater liberalisation of the market for legal services. This proposal is explored with particular reference to freedom of services within the European single market and, as a backdrop to the paper, progress to date in facilitating cross-border legal services in Europe is reviewed.

No abstract

There is a considerable amount of literature on embeddedness as part of sociological theory of economic action. Cultural and structural embeddedness often work together to shape the framework of economic relations, but, in an analysis of rural solicitors, we find unevenness between cultural and structural embeddedness. There are strong traits of the former, through a sense of place and belonging, but much less evidence of the latter with the structural relationships appearing relatively weak and underdeveloped. In a discussion supported by empirical data from a recent survey of rural legal practices in Wales, a number of causes are identified. The paper concludes that trends towards increasingly specialized rather than generalized legal service provision, set alongside the increasingly differentiated nature of rural space, suggest that the longer-term sustainability of rural legal practices may require both greater investment at the level of structural embeddedness alongside continuing reinvestment at the cultural level.

No abstract