IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/teinso/v58y2019ics0160791x19301083.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Emerging patterns in the academic literature on responsible research and innovation

Author

Listed:
  • Loureiro, Paulo Maia
  • Conceição, Cristina Palma

Abstract

Recently, the term “Responsible Research and Innovation” (RRI) was introduced in the European Union policy discourse for science and technology, aiming to align research and innovation to the values, needs and expectations of society. At the same time the concept of RRI was debated by academics across fields of knowledge. The goal of this study is to uncover discursive properties in the academic literature about RRI and to frame it in a disciplinary context. We summarize how RRI emerged in the academic literature, showing evidence of conflicting definitions and interpretations. Using computational tools and methodologies of network and text analysis, the discursive content of a large set of peer-reviewed articles was analysed. Results show that RRI is gradually becoming more multidisciplinary, and also that the academic discourse is increasingly more focused on public engagement and ethics, leaving aside other dimensions of RRI proposed by the official European policy discourse. We conducted directed content analysis with the purpose of deepening and discussing the findings, and conclude that the increasing multidisciplinarity of RRI and the ideological potential that emerges from the relation between the dimensions of ethics and engagement are the factors that most contribute to the lack of consensus in the definition of RRI.

Suggested Citation

  • Loureiro, Paulo Maia & Conceição, Cristina Palma, 2019. "Emerging patterns in the academic literature on responsible research and innovation," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:teinso:v:58:y:2019:i:c:s0160791x19301083
    DOI: 10.1016/j.techsoc.2019.101148
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160791X19301083
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.techsoc.2019.101148?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bernd Carsten Stahl & Michael Obach & Emad Yaghmaei & Veikko Ikonen & Kate Chatfield & Alexander Brem, 2017. "The Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) Maturity Model: Linking Theory and Practice," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-19, June.
    2. Ibo Van de Poel & Lotte Asveld & Steven Flipse & Pim Klaassen & Victor Scholten & Emad Yaghmaei, 2017. "Company Strategies for Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI): A Conceptual Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(11), pages 1-18, November.
    3. Norris, Michael & Oppenheim, Charles, 2007. "Comparing alternatives to the Web of Science for coverage of the social sciences’ literature," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 161-169.
    4. Richard Owen & Nicola Goldberg, 2010. "Responsible Innovation: A Pilot Study with the U.K. Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(11), pages 1699-1707, November.
    5. Christian Pieter Hoffmann & Christoph Lutz & Miriam Meckel, 2016. "A relational altmetric? Network centrality on ResearchGate as an indicator of scientific impact," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 67(4), pages 765-775, April.
    6. Niels Mejlgaard & Carter Bloch, 2012. "Science in Society in Europe," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 39(6), pages 695-700, December.
    7. Armin Grunwald, 2011. "Responsible innovation: bringing together technology assessment, applied ethics, and STS research," Enterprise and Work Innovation Studies, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, IET/CICS.NOVA-Interdisciplinary Centre on Social Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, vol. 7(7), pages 9-31, November.
    8. Kimmel, Shawn C. & Toohey, Nathan M. & Delborne, Jason A., 2016. "Roadblocks to responsible innovation: Exploring technology assessment and adoption in U.S. public highway construction," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 66-77.
    9. Rouwette, Etiënne & van Kranenburg, Hans & Freeman, Edward, 2017. "Reviewing the role of stakeholders in Operational Research: A stakeholder theory perspectiveAuthor-Name: de Gooyert, Vincent," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 262(2), pages 402-410.
    10. Richard Owen & Phil Macnaghten & Jack Stilgoe, 2012. "Responsible research and innovation: From science in society to science for society, with society," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 39(6), pages 751-760, December.
    11. Erjia Yan & Ying Ding, 2009. "Applying centrality measures to impact analysis: A coauthorship network analysis," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 60(10), pages 2107-2118, October.
    12. Stilgoe, Jack & Owen, Richard & Macnaghten, Phil, 2013. "Developing a framework for responsible innovation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(9), pages 1568-1580.
    13. Agata Gurzawska & Markus Mäkinen & Philip Brey, 2017. "Implementation of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) Practices in Industry: Providing the Right Incentives," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-26, September.
    14. João Guerreiro & Paulo Rita & Duarte Trigueiros, 2016. "A Text Mining-Based Review of Cause-Related Marketing Literature," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 139(1), pages 111-128, November.
    15. Loet Leydesdorff, 2007. "Betweenness centrality as an indicator of the interdisciplinarity of scientific journals," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 58(9), pages 1303-1319, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hemphill, Thomas A., 2020. "“The innovation governance dilemma: Alternatives to the precautionary principle”," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    2. Wiarda, Martijn & van de Kaa, Geerten & Yaghmaei, Emad & Doorn, Neelke, 2021. "A comprehensive appraisal of responsible research and innovation: From roots to leaves," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    3. Vallès-Peris, Núria & Domènech, Miquel, 2024. "Digital citizenship at school: Democracy, pragmatism and RRI," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Beniamino Callegari & Olga Mikhailova, 2021. "RRI and Corporate Stakeholder Engagement: The Aquadvantage Salmon Case," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-18, February.
    2. Wiarda, Martijn & van de Kaa, Geerten & Yaghmaei, Emad & Doorn, Neelke, 2021. "A comprehensive appraisal of responsible research and innovation: From roots to leaves," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    3. Agata Sudolska & Andrzej Lis & Monika Chodorek, 2019. "Research Profiling for Responsible and Sustainable Innovations," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(23), pages 1-31, November.
    4. Carbajo, Ruth & Cabeza, Luisa F., 2019. "Sustainability and social justice dimension indicators for applied renewable energy research: A responsible approach proposal," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 252(C), pages 1-1.
    5. Ibo Van de Poel & Lotte Asveld & Steven Flipse & Pim Klaassen & Victor Scholten & Emad Yaghmaei, 2017. "Company Strategies for Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI): A Conceptual Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(11), pages 1-18, November.
    6. Carbajo, Ruth & Cabeza, Luisa F., 2022. "Researchers’ perspective within responsible implementation with socio-technical approaches. An example from solar energy research centre in Chile," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    7. Zhang, Stephen X. & Chen, Jiyao & He, Liangxing & Choudhury, Afreen, 2023. "Responsible Innovation: The development and validation of a scale," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    8. Agata Gurzawska, 2021. "Responsible Innovation in Business: Perceptions, Evaluation Practices and Lessons Learnt," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-27, February.
    9. Oier Imaz & Andoni Eizagirre, 2020. "Responsible Innovation for Sustainable Development Goals in Business: An Agenda for Cooperative Firms," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-20, August.
    10. Sophie Pellé & Bernard Reber, 2015. "Responsible Innovation in the Light of Moral Responsibility," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-01418017, HAL.
    11. Fisher, Erik, 2019. "Governing with ambivalence: The tentative origins of socio-technical integration," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(5), pages 1138-1149.
    12. Flick, Catherine & Zamani, Efpraxia D. & Stahl, Bernd Carsten & Brem, Alexander, 2020. "The future of ICT for health and ageing: Unveiling ethical and social issues through horizon scanning foresight," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    13. Miklós Lukovics & Beáta Udvari & Nikoletta Nádas & Erik Fisher, 2019. "Raising Awareness of Researchers-in-the-Making Toward Responsible Research and Innovation," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 10(4), pages 1558-1577, December.
    14. Tetiana Ivanova & Iryna Manaienko & Marina Shkrobot & Yuriy Tadeyev, 2021. "Theoretical Frameworks of Responsible Innovations," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 5, pages 143-157.
    15. André Martinuzzi & Vincent Blok & Alexander Brem & Bernd Stahl & Norma Schönherr, 2018. "Responsible Research and Innovation in Industry—Challenges, Insights and Perspectives," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-9, March.
    16. Genus, Audley & Iskandarova, Marfuga, 2018. "Responsible innovation: its institutionalisation and a critique," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 1-9.
    17. Kuhlmann, Stefan & Stegmaier, Peter & Konrad, Kornelia, 2019. "The tentative governance of emerging science and technology—A conceptual introduction," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(5), pages 1091-1097.
    18. Jiqing Liu & Gui Zhang & Xiaojing Lv & Jiayu Li, 2022. "Discovering the Landscape and Evolution of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI): Science Mapping Based on Bibliometric Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-32, July.
    19. Luca Tricarico & Andrea Galimberti & Ausilia Campanaro & Chiara Magoni & Massimo Labra, 2020. "Experimenting with RRI tools to Drive Sustainable Agri-Food Research: The SASS Case Study from Sub-Saharan Africa," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-19, January.
    20. Yang, Kun & Wang, Wan & Xiong, Wan, 2021. "Promoting the sustainable development of infrastructure projects through responsible innovation: An evolutionary game analysis," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:teinso:v:58:y:2019:i:c:s0160791x19301083. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/technology-in-society .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.