Social Labs in Public Engagement Processes for RRI

Abstract

Research and research programmes have explicitly demanded to seek solutions to today’s societal challenges and have emphasised the importance of addressing societal needs and ethical questions in research and development (e.g. Owen and Pansera 2019). Since new sciences and emerging technologies are mostly embedded in fields of conflicting interests and are of high complexity, there is a need for multi-actor decision processes, including actors of the wider public (e.g. Chilvers and Kearnes 2016).

Public Engagement Practices in EC-Funded RRI Projects: Fostering Socio-Scientific Collaborations

“…This need is further enhanced by indications that permanent 'settlements' of society in science can be valuable, since a new science-society collaboration can create space for public dialogue (Irwin 2006) and democratisation of science and innovation (Callon and Lacoste 2011;Marschalek 2017) based on pluralist democracy (Durant 1999). In fact, these permanents 'settlements' of society built through the synergistic engagement of Quadruple Helix stakeholders can further contribute to developing contextually appropriate R&I practices under a human-centric design (Carayannis et al 2021).…”

“…RRI can be seen as a re-articulation of long-standing claims about STI (as its precedents ELSA or responsible development), but further emphasises the 'creation of spaces for collective forms of engagement, the experimentation in new constellations of actors and the reconsideration of the diverse values at stake in innovation' (Felt 2018). Overall, RRI has attracted the attention of a broader discourse, encompassing academic, policy and European (EC) discourse with reference to various scientific fields (Marschalek 2017). In particular, regarding the EC discourse, RRI is promoted by the EC as a policy rather than as an analytical concept, as follows:…”

“…Finally, the emergence of PE within the RRI context-albeit the general recognition of its beneficial nature-brought to the surface some anticipated obstacles for its implemen-tation within the RRI context. As argued by EU stakeholders participating in a relevant EU conference, notable obstacles refer to: the indifferent public; distrust; conflicts of interest; 'complexity' of science; and lack of concrete methodologies for managing public participation (for an overview, see Marschalek (2017).…”

“…As for defining PE, the European Commission (2020) argues that 'Public Engagement is about co-creating the future with the public and civil society organisations, and also bringing on board the widest possible diversity of people that would not normally interact on matters of science and technology' (working definition also adopted in this paper). Owing to the PE-driven robust knowledge that emerges (Jasanoff 2003;Marschalek 2017), advancements can be noticed concerning: (a) acquiring a new social science-society contract exhibiting a mutual and prudential acquiescence concerning R&I outcomes (Rip 2014); (b) addressing some long-standing 'wicked' problems in R&I, described by (Rittel and Webber 1973) as policy problems difficult to address due to their nature (i.e., constantly changing requirements and conditions, having no single verified solution and often meeting resistance). As for a notable example of 'wicked' problems in R&I, it refers to STI procedures frequently being 'hijacked' by experts refusing to leave their 'ivory tower' and allowing little or no public participation.…”

“…As for a notable example of 'wicked' problems in R&I, it refers to STI procedures frequently being 'hijacked' by experts refusing to leave their 'ivory tower' and allowing little or no public participation. Finally, it should be noted that along with the EC definitions of PE and scholarly arguments on PE benefits, investigating the current status of PE from a practitioner's point of view is still of interest, given: (a) the existence of mostly theoretical rather than empirical work on the topic of practical PE implementation; (b) the 'infancy' of the existing arguments on PE implementation (Marschalek 2017).…”