Keywords

1.1 Introduction

This is the second volume in a series of proceedings on Responsible Innovation, corresponding with a conference series organized by the Netherlands Council for Scientific Research (NWO) in The Hague since 2011. The conferences present results of research projects funded under the NWO research program “Responsible Innovation” (Maatschappelijk Verantwoord Innoveren).Footnote 1 At the same time, the conferences provide a platform for the broad and rapidly growing international community of researchers—inside and outside of academia—who are interested and involved in research and innovation projects that investigate or implement responsible innovation. This volume contains work both from NWO-funded projects and from international researchers, which was presented at the second Conference on Responsible Innovation that took place on 13–14 December 2012 in The Hague.

Although ‘responsible innovation’ is a term that is increasingly used both in academic and in policy circles, it is by no means clear what exactly the term refers to, nor how responsible innovation, once we know what is meant by this, can or should be approached. With a wide variety of contributions that discuss conceptualisations, approaches, and applications of responsible innovation, this volume contributes to a better understanding of what responsible innovation means and what this implies for the theory and practice of innovation. The Dutch research program and conference series offer a space for anticipating, reflecting, deliberating, and responding to responsible innovation, and thus can be seen as an example of responsible innovation in research and policy itself (cf. Owen et al. 2013a, b, p. 46).

Although the contributions in this volume can only provide one step forward in what is as yet an early stage of a growing international effort at responsible innovation , slowly the contours of responsible innovation are taking shape. The aim of this volume is not to discuss certain particular aspects of responsible innovation, nor to take a position on how responsible innovation can best be undertaken; rather, we aim to offer a broad overview of what is currently happening in the field of responsible innovation, both in conceptual thinking and in actual research practice, in all its varieties and forms. Thus, the volume can contribute both to the further conceptualisation and theory-building of responsible innovation and to mutual learning of current approaches and practices, illustrated by more or less successful case studies and concrete challenges that responsible innovation projects are facing.

In this introductory chapter, I will sketch the contours of the broad landscape of responsible innovation, drawing from the contributions to this volume and the emerging body of literature (Von Schomberg 2011; Owen et al. 2013a). First, the concept of responsible innovation is explored: what does ‘responsible innovation’ refer to? Next, some of the major approaches to responsible innovation are discussed: how can we go about innovating responsibly? This sets the stage for a brief sketch of the current landscape of responsible innovation: who is doing what in which areas? The chapter ends with explaining the structure of the book and a brief tour through the chapters.

1.2 What Is Responsible Innovation?

The concept of responsible innovation —sometimes also referred to as responsible research and innovation to emphasise the relevance of ‘responsibility’ also in fundamental research—is gaining currency. A detailed definition is given by Von Schomberg (2011, p. 9):

Responsible Research and Innovation is a transparent, interactive process by which societal actors and innovators become mutually responsive to each other with a view on the (ethical) acceptability, sustainability and societal desirability of the innovation process and its marketable products (in order to allow a proper embedding of scientific and technological advances in our society).

At a more abstract level, Stahl et al. (2013, p. 214) define responsible research and innovation as ‘a social construct or ascription that defines entities and relationships between them in such a way that the outcomes of research and innovation processes lead to socially desirable outcomes.’ Owen et al. (2013a, b, p. 36) define responsible innovation as ‘a collective commitment of care for the future through responsive stewardship of science and innovation in the present.’ Blok and Lemmens (Chap. 2) describe responsible innovation as ‘a new approach towards innovation, in which social and ethical aspects are explicitly taken into account (…) and economic, socio-cultural and environmental aspects are balanced’. Similarly, Setiawan and Singh (Chap. 12) provide a contextualized working definition of responsible innovation as ‘ensuring the accountability of innovation actors (the actors involved in the adoption of innovation) through the engagement of anticipation, reflexivity, responsiveness, deliberation and participation in the adoption of innovation while looking the impact of innovation on three aspects: environment, social, and economy’.

In these definitions , the emphasis is on articulating what ‘responsible’ means in ‘responsible innovation’; the element of ‘innovation’ in ‘responsible innovation’ is not elaborated. Although this could imply that it is taken for granted that we know what ‘innovation’ means—with a very wide body of literature on innovation, perhaps there is no need to pin down what exactly ‘innovation’ means, as we all seem to know what it refers to—this need not be the case. Owen et al. (2013a) start their volume with a lengthy chapter on innovation, before embarking on a discussion of what is responsible in innovation, an approach that is followed in the discussion of definitions in Chap. 12. Blok and Lemmens (Chap. 2) argue that often a too limited understanding of innovation is applied: ‘future research should broaden our conception of innovation, including non-technological innovations and non-market environments.’ I think that the lack of elaboration of ‘innovation’ in definitions of the term ‘responsible innovation’ does not primarily indicate an unproblematic understanding of innovation; rather, it suggests that responsible innovation literature can be seen as a sub-field of innovation. It does not primarily aim at understanding or improving innovation as such, but rather at understanding how innovation, whatever it means in different contexts, can be made ‘responsible’.

What, then, does ‘responsible’ mean? In the definitions above, it refers to being (ethically) acceptable, sustainable, socially desirable (see also Von Schomberg 2013, p. 64), leading to socially desirable outcomes (Stahl, Eden, and Jirotka), care for the future (Owen et al.), and taking account of social and ethical aspects and balancing economic, socio-cultural and environmental aspects (Blok and Lemmens, Setiawan and Singh). The emphasis here is on incorporating social and ethical values or aspects in the innovation process. In this respect, responsible innovation is a close relative of corporate social responsibility, with which it shares a strong family resemblance. The Dutch term for responsible innovation, ‘maatschappelijk verantwoord innoveren’ (literally: socially responsible innovation) is modelled on the Dutch term for corporate social responsibility, ‘maatschappelijk verantwoord ondernemen’ (literally: socially responsible entrepreneurship). Insofar as industry innovates through research and development, there is considerable common ground between the ambitions of corporate social responsibility and responsible innovation. If we want to investigate the concept of responsible innovation (cf. Chaps. 3 and 4), we should therefore take care not to restrict literature searches to the sole term ‘responsible innovation’; one could easily miss out relevant developments in adjacent areas, such as corporate social responsibility or other ‘social responsibility’ family members.

In a similar vein, we should be careful in acting as if responsible innovation is a new enterprise, lest we overlook lessons of the past. Responsible innovation builds on various areas that have known a very active and productive scholarship over the past decades. Most prominently (cf. Chap. 4), responsible innovation’s roots lie in various strands of Science, Technology, and Society Studies (STS), such as technology assessment, particularly the later generations of Constructive Technology Assessment and Participatory or Public Technology Assessment (for an overview, see Van Eindhoven 1997), and Value-Sensitive Design (Friedman 1998). It also has roots in applied ethics, often combined with STS approaches into a reflection on how new technologies, society, and values co-evolve (e.g., Bijker and Law 1992). There are also close parallels between the emergence of responsible innovation and of sustainable development, sharing a focus on value-sensitive and process-oriented guidance of processes of change (cf. Chaps. 11 and 15).

Less prominent but equally important are the roots of responsible innovation in legal theory, governance and regulation studies, in which the past decades have witnessed a ‘wider governance turn [that] is expressed through a move away from top-down, command and control regulation and towards a broader distribution of “soft law” activities’ (Chap. 3). The development of ‘smart regulation’ or ‘responsive regulation’ (Ayres and Braithwaite 1995) and ‘participatory governance’ (Fung and Wright 2003) shares many characteristics with developments in STS and applied ethics, such as a focus on an on-going and reflexive process of learning, and a ‘participatory turn’ of stakeholder involvement. Thus, regulatory innovation (Black et al. 2005) is a close relative of responsible (research and) innovation. Similarly, the rise of the study of ‘techno-regulation’, i.e., the use of technology as a regulatory tool (Lessig 1999; Brownsword and Yeung 2008), parallels the development of value-sensitive design, in an enterprise of embedding, in a responsible way, values and norms in the design of technology. Considerable experience with reflexive learning and stakeholder engagement has also been built up within the field of risk governance, within which risk assessment bears considerable similarities with Technology Assessment, and risk management has developed approaches fitting the paradigm of responsive regulation. The increasing emphasis on stakeholder engagement and public participation in risk governance (e.g., Thayyil 2014) likewise parallels the focus on stakeholder engagement in responsible innovation.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of responsible innovation is that it builds on these various traditions, and tries to bring together the insights from different research traditions and communities, ranging from innovation studies, STS , ethics, and governance and regulation studies. Moreover, responsible innovation research is not conducted in ivory towers, but in labs and work spaces where innovation happens in practice; it brings together scientists, social scientists, and humanities scholars to jointly explore how research and innovation can be ‘responsibly’ shaped. And this need not, and should not, be restricted to technological innovation stricto sensu: since technology interacts with society and norms in a complex process of mutual shaping, responsible innovation is broadly relevant wherever society innovates, be it in technologies, institutions, social practices, or regulation. It is the combination of all these that should, ideally, be incorporated into responsible innovation.

Which leaves me with a final question: how can we best characterise the concept of responsible innovation that we are exploring? Is it just a ‘concept’ (Chap. 4), a ‘notion’ or a ‘discourse’ (Chap. 2), an ‘approach’ (Chap. 2) or a ‘strategy’ (Von Schomberg 2013, p. 51), or an ‘ideal’ or ‘aspiration’ (Owen et al. 2013a, b, p. 27)? Is it a new field of study or an emerging discipline, or a trend in scholarship and policy, or perhaps even a hype (Chap. 4)? Perhaps it is all of the above, but if we must choose, I think responsible innovation can best be characterised as a combination of two things. It is, first, an ideal: something we strive for even though we realise it can never be fully attained. Second, it is also a project, a joint enterprise of an increasingly large community of people who want to bring us closer to this ideal.

1.3 Approaches to Responsible Innovation

There are many ways to approach responsible innovation in practice. With roots in several different traditions, responsible innovation can draw from a variety of methods, practices, and lessons, as the chapters in part II (on approaches) and part III (on applications) attest. A single element stands out as a common factor within the variety of approaches: the engagement with stakeholders (Chaps. 4, 6–12, and 15). In line with the ‘participatory turn’ in the social sciences, responsible innovation researchers emphasise the importance of listening to stakeholders in innovation processes. They explore stakeholder opinions and views both substantively, as part of an effort of responsible innovation in certain contexts, such as cognitive enhancement (Chap. 7) or biofuels in Tanzania (Chap. 15), and at a meta-level, reflecting on what are productive methods to investigate and incorporate stakeholder views, such as focus groups (Chap. 8) or dialogue workshops (Chap. 9). The risk of seeing stakeholder engagement as a silver bullet in responsible innovation is pointed out by Blok and Lemmens, who emphasise that power asymmetries between stakeholder groups affect the framing of societal problems and the responsiveness and the ‘response-ability’ of actors in the innovation process, leading them to conclude that the ‘practical applicability of the concept of responsible innovation is highly questionable’ (Chap. 2). This contrasts sharply with the tone and findings of Correljé et al., whose framework sees public engagement as a symmetrical process giving equal attention to the project stakeholders and the local community (‘the public’); according to them, ‘symmetry is considered crucial for value sensitive design of energy projects’ (Chap. 10).

Apart from stakeholder engagement , there are no substantial elements that seem to be common to all approaches to responsible innovation. Within the wide range of ways to deal with responsible innovation, two broad types of approaches can be distinguished: a product approach and a process approach. This distinction is similar but not identical to the two dimensions that Von Schomberg (2013, pp. 65–66) discerns. Von Schomberg’s product dimension describes responsible innovation for products, which ‘should be evaluated and designed with a view to (…) normative anchor points’ (Von Schomberg 2013, p. 65). The process dimension describes responsible innovation as an attempt ‘to arrive at a more responsive, adaptive, and integrated management of the innovation process’ (Von Schomberg 2013, p. 65). These dimensions thus focus on the object of responsible innovation: either a (usually technological) product, or the process of innovation.

The product and process approaches that I discern relate more to the approach to responsible innovation: the enterprise of responsible innovation can be seen as a product (something that is developed and then used) or a process (something that is on-going and recursive). A product approach can be applied both to product innovation (e.g., a value-sensitive memory detection test, Chap. 13) and to process innovation (e.g., developing a normative framework to assess shifts in responsibilities associated with cognitive enhancement, Chap. 7). A process approach can be applied to product innovation (e.g., organising ‘responsiveness’ in food technology, Chap. 9) and to process innovation (e.g., developing a learning platform for innovation in ICT research and development, Chap. 6). There is no clear-cut border between these approaches. Approaches to responsible innovation lie on a spectrum with the product approach at one end and the process approach at the other end, and most responsible innovation projects lie somewhere in between. For analytical purposes, it may nevertheless be useful to articulate which end of the spectrum tends to get more attention.

The product approach can be characterised by a focus on developing a method, a framework, or guidelines that can be used to make innovation in a certain context more responsible. Often, it involves the development of a normative framework (consisting of ethical and legal values and norms) that is subsequently applied to a technology (concrete applications or a more abstract class of technology), and this often is accompanied by an argument that the normative framework should be applied from the start of the technology development process. Responsibility in innovation processes has to move ‘upstream’, and many projects aim at developing tools that actors at the source of the stream can use to take account of ethical and social values. Risk assessment methods and the precautionary principle (discussed in Chap. 5) are examples of such tools.

Although the value set of stakeholders is an important element of the normative framework, the product approach seems often also to incorporate values from external sources in the normative framework. For example, Robaey and Simons draw upon the classic principles in biomedical ethics to develop a set of higher values that is used to take a critical look at three current approaches to responsible innovation, and they argue that the value of justice is underrepresented in these approaches (Chap. 5). Danaher uses legal-systematic principles to develop a legitimacy -enhancing test that can be applied forensic applications such as lie detection (Chap. 13). Maslen, Santoni de Sio, and Faulmüller combine analysis of stakeholder values with legal and philosophical analysis in their application of the method of reflective equilibrium to contribute to the responsible development and use of cognitive enhancers such as psychopharmaceuticals (Chap. 7).

Moving towards the other end of the spectrum, the process approach can be characterised as a focus on developing self-learning procedures that can be used to make innovation in a certain context more responsible. In contrast to the product approach , the aim is less to develop substantively responsible frameworks or methods, but rather procedures or practices that are procedurally responsible. It is often associated with procedural values such as legitimacy, inclusiveness, and accountability, while the substantive values that guide a certain technology or system transition are generated internally to the context, through stakeholder involvement. This procedural, self-learning focus is most visible in Owen et al.’s approach to responsible innovation: ‘to innovate responsibly entails a continuous commitment to be anticipatory, reflective, inclusive, deliberative, and responsive’ (Owen et al. 2013a, b, p. 29, emphasis in original). Procedures developed along these lines can be found, for instance, in adaptive management (discussed in Chap. 5) and the Observatory for Responsible Research and Innovation in ICT, which fosters self-learning in the UK ICT research community with respect to responsible innovation practices (Chap. 6). The process approach is also well illustrated in Correljé et al.’s framework for responsible innovation in the energy sector, which reflects

‘the dynamic nature of value specification through stakeholder interaction. This is an important notion for value sensitive design. The emergent and dynamic nature of value specification demonstrates that a full ex ante assessment of relevant and conflicting values is not possible. Designing for values requires a continuous and flexible participatory approach.’ (Chap. 10)

Perhaps it is ironic that many projects that subscribe to a process vision of responsible innovation, with a focus on developing reflective, inclusive, deliberative, and responsive procedures, nevertheless have a tendency to adopt somewhat of a product approach to the procedures or methods they develop, in the sense that they hope to develop, ultimately, a good (reflective, responsive, etc.) procedure that works to achieve responsible innovation. Although reflection and self-learning are evident in the critical approach that researchers adopt towards what they are doing (see, e.g., Chap. 9), responsible innovation researchers do not always critically and recursively reflect on what they are doing themselves. Researchers operating in the value-sensitive design frame should, for example, carefully consider the critique by Blok and Lemmens that ‘[i]nnovation implies pain, annihilation and destruction, and it is questionable whether this “Faustian aspect” of innovation can ever be overcome by integrating social and ethical aspects in the design process’ (Chap. 2).

It is important to realise that ‘as an innovation itself, responsible innovation must abide by its own framework in this regard, and be anticipatory, reflective, deliberative, and responsive in its constitution and implementation’ (Owen et al. 2013a, b, p. 46). Possibly, responsible innovation research and implementation projects should make a more consistent effort to internalise the very process approach that many researchers advocate as the best approach to responsible innovation. This implies that these research and implementation projects should also build in reflection and deliberation—with peers in the responsible innovation research community —in the design of their projects. Innovation projects, if they are to be responsible, should incorporate sensitivity to the dynamic character of the systems that are being innovated, by building in reflexivity and recursiveness in their tools, methods, procedures, and approaches.

1.4 The Landscape of Responsible Innovation

While the previous sections articulate the growing importance of and attention for responsible innovation, it remains to be seen to what extent the ideal of responsible innovation is brought any closer in practice by the collective project of responsible innovation. As Davies and Horst observe, ‘[w]e also found it easier to identify discussion of the principles of RI than examples of it being carried out in practice’ (Chap. 3), and scientists seem as yet little involved in discussing responsible innovation in their own practice (Chap. 4). At this point in time, responsible innovation is, perhaps, largely an international, macro-level discourse (Chap. 3). But such a view would ignore the many efforts that are presently being undertaken to give meaning and substance to responsible innovation. Parts II and III of this volume attest to a significant number of applications in responsible innovation practices and projects. Gradually, the contours of the landscape of responsible innovation are taking shape. It is impossible to provide a detailed picture of this landscape here, both because of space constraints and because the contours are as yet fuzzy, but a charcoal sketch might look as follows.

The landscape of responsible innovation is very diverse, first and foremost because responsible innovation requires a context-sensitive approach. Any attempt at responsible innovation should therefore be carefully positioned along the relevant dimensions that constitute its context—and perhaps responsible innovation exists not only in our four-dimensional space/time world but also in the metaphorical ten-dimensional space that I have elsewhere sketched of technology regulation research (Koops 2010). The context depends not only on place and time, but also on the type and innovativeness of a technology, on the type and framing of the problem, the disciplines that are or can be used to approach the problem, the available knowledge , and the normative outlooks involved. Ideally, a context-specific approach would explicitly position responsible innovation along each of these dimensions.

In terms of technologies, a significant number of projects described in this volume are situated in the fields of energy, environment-related technologies, and neuroscience. This may well be a coincidence as the volume is just a snapshot of one meeting point (the December 2012 conference). It demonstrates how topical energy, food, and neuroscience are in the current innovation landscape, but it should be pointed out that responsible innovation in information and communication technologies (ICT) is being discussed extensively in other platforms, such as a Privacy by Design approach to ICT systems (Cavoukian 2010), while ICT, finance, and nanotechnologies have dedicated chapters in Owen et al.’s (2013a) overview. Thus, the picture in this volume of technology areas is not representative of the entire landscape of responsible innovation, which stretches from ICT to synthetic biology, from nano-medicine to biorobotics, from renewable energy to technology transfer, and beyond.

The same applies to the places where responsible innovation takes place. Many chapters in this volume describe projects based in the Netherlands, which is not surprising since the conference and associated research program have Dutch roots. But then, the Netherlands have a strong international position in STS and applied ethics, and it is not without reason that an innovative research program and conference series arise in this context. Notable is the connection that Dutch researchers have with developing countries in efforts of locally-sensitive responsible innovation projects (Chaps. 11, 12 and 15). Other countries featuring in this volume are the United Kingdom (Chaps. 3 and 6) and Denmark (Chap. 3), evidencing a European focal point in responsible innovation, which may partly be credited to the presence of policy entrepreneurs such as René von Schomberg. The United States, however, is also visible in the landscape (Chaps. 3, 13 and 14).

As to the actors populating the landscape, Davies and Horst provide a good overview:

‘a wide range of persons, organisations, groups and categories appear as implicated in RI [responsible innovation] in some way. These actors include, for instance: “Europe”, “the public”, “governments, companies and research funders”, “civil society”, “business”, “stakeholders”, “NGOs”, “research councils”, “investors”, “citizens”, and “researchers”.’ (Chap. 3)

In line with the emphasis on stakeholder engagement , the main characters featuring in many of the chapters are those most directly involved in the innovation process: developers (scientists, researchers) and users (consumers, professional users, ‘the public’). Less visible, however, are important stakeholders who are not involved hands-on in the process or product itself that is being innovated, but who affect the innovation trajectory more indirectly though not less forcibly: research funders (both public and private), corporate leaders (corporate innovation seems underrepresented in current research, according to Chap. 2), and regulators (politicians, law-making officials, supervisory authorities).

The relative absence of regulators in the landscape might imply that the governance of responsible innovation is as yet underdeveloped, and perhaps that processes of responsible innovation are to a significant extent self-governed. But absence of regulators does not necessarily imply absence of governance structures besides self-regulation: most innovation takes place within existing regulatory frameworks, for example norms and institutions for health and safety, intellectual property, liability, and standardisation. Nevertheless, existing governance structures and regulatory frameworks can sometimes be poorly equipped to accommodate certain innovations or system transitions. For example, regulation of the energy market based on the tradition energy market has to be transformed to deal with the transition to smart grids (cf. Bellantuono 2012); regulation of chemicals based on quantity thresholds is not well-suited to govern nano-materials that due to different properties may also be toxic in small quantities (Fleurke and Somsen 2011: 372); and the incentive structure embedded in liability law might impede certain innovations in robotics due to the unpredictability, and possible lack of insurability, of autonomic robotic applications (cf. Bertolini 2013). This underlines the importance of integrating the governance perspective within the whole cycle of responsible innovation processes, so that technologies, practices, and governance can fruitfully co-evolve.

One possible explanation for the relative lack of visible interaction of regulators with responsible innovation processes can be found in Collingridge’s dilemma: controlling a technology is difficult in its early stages because not enough is known of its possible or probable effects, and it is also difficult once the technology is well-developed because by then intervention is expensive and drastic (Collingridge 1980). Possibly, regulators are verging towards regulating technologies more downstream, when at least they have better knowledge of the technology and its effects, instead of exploring regulatory interventions upstream where responsible innovation is situated. Seeing, however, that regulatory innovation does take place, for example in Privacy by Design requirements in data protection law (European Commission 2012: Art. 23), model codes of conduct for responsible nanotechnologies (European Commission 2008), and a reflexive and cyclical approach in European chemicals regulation (Fleurke and Somsen 2011), there may also be another explanation for the lack of visibility of governance in the responsible innovation landscape. Possibly, responsible innovation and regulatory innovation, although close cousins, are as yet shaped within different communities, forming two cultures that need to get better acquainted. Hopefully, in the coming generation of responsible innovation research and practice, regulators—and other indirect but powerful stakeholders—will also be involved more visibly in the enterprise of responsible innovation.

The landscape is coloured by the values and normative outlooks that constitute the ‘responsible’ element in responsible innovation contexts. Which values and outlooks are relevant is highly context-dependent, not only depending on the socio-cultural location but also on the technology and type of problem that are being studied. As observed above, higher-level values that colour the landscape more strongly are often procedural values, perhaps because the substantive values are too context-specific to show in depth, or because innovation is radically unpredictable (Chap. 2) and hence can only be approached in terms of procedural fairness and not substantive fairness. It is interesting to note that where substantive values do show through in this volume, they are often centred on autonomy and a fair (re)distribution of responsibilities. This not only repeats a long-standing concern in discussions on new technologies that they might (typically negatively) affect the autonomy of individuals, but it might also reflect a possible step-change in the role of technology in society: with fast-growing developments in robotics, we are now witnessing the emergence of technologies that can, and perhaps will, function really independently from human agency (cf. the discussion of drones in Chap. 14). The concern over autonomous technologies has of course a respectable tradition in science fiction, philosophy, and future studies, but so far the prospect of technologies going ‘their own way’ has been essentially speculative. With emerging robotics applications, we may have to negotiate our relationship with technology in new ways, moving from craftsman-tool and subject-object relationships toward relationships between autonomous subjects (cf. Matthias 2007).

1.5 Overview of This Volume

We have organised this volume in three parts. Part I contains chapters that primarily attempt to conceptualise responsible innovation. These chapters discuss, at a meta-level, the concept(s) that are used in policy and academia discourse and practice. In Chap. 2, Vincent Blok and Pieter Lemmens provide a counterpoint to the dominant narrative of responsible innovation , arguing that this narrative misunderstands the nature of innovation, raising significant doubts on the practical feasibility of ‘responsible innovation’. A more critical inquiry into the concept is needed, with a less naïve understanding of the process of innovation, a wider understanding of innovation that also covers institutions and social practices, and a study of alternative strategies of innovation in contexts that may be more amenable to ‘responsibilisation’ than mainstream, often power-imbalanced, innovation contexts. In Chap. 3, Sarah R. Davies and Maja Horst sketch the policy landscape of responsible innovation in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Denmark, asking how the concept is being constituted in policy and governance discourse. A descriptive map of the landscape is followed by a critical reflection, which finds responsible innovation currently to be a general and macro-level process, associated with de-individualisation of responsible actors, and the authors call for more research and initiatives at the micro-level where responsible innovation should be operationalised. In Chap. 4, Marije de Jong and colleagues investigate whether and to what extent researchers in neuroimaging are familiar with the notion of responsible innovation. As the results show a low level of awareness with hands-on researchers, the authors argue that, responsible innovation being a co-constructive process, extra efforts should be made to actively engage scientists in this enterprise.

Parts II and III contain chapters that discuss approaches to and applications of responsible innovation. Most chapters contain a combination of an approach—a method, tool, or framework to practice responsible innovation —and an application context, such as food technology or solar energy. The focus in some chapters tends to be more on the approach, while other chapters seem to focus more on the application context. We have therefore arranged the chapters in a part on approaches to responsible innovation (Part II), where the discussion tends to be particularly concerned with learning about the process of responsible innovation itself, and a part on applications of responsible innovation (Part III), where the discussion tends to have more the character of case studies of how responsible innovation is, can be, or should be approached in concrete application contexts. The distinction is an analytic one that may help to guide the reader through the landscape of responsible innovation, going roughly downhill from more abstract to more concrete levels of discussion, but the reader should bear in mind that all chapters in these parts contain elements of approaches as well as applications.

Part II starts with Chap. 5, in which Zoë Robaey and Arno Simons discuss responsible innovation conceptualised as a process of social experimentation. They critically discuss three types of policy approaches featuring in the literature to deal with introducing new technologies in societies: the precautionary principle, participatory technology assessment, and adaptive management. An ethical analysis of these demonstrates that key ethical values are present to a greater or lesser extent in these approaches, and the authors plea for policy-makers to take more account of the value of justice. Chapter 6 presents results by Bernd Carsten Stahl and colleagues from a UK-funded project to develop a Framework for Responsible Research and Innovation in ICT. By developing an Observatory that serves as a platform for ICT scholars who face responsibility-related questions, the project contributes to sharing of experiences and good practices and serves as a community-based resource for responsible ICT innovation. A workshop reflecting on the idea of an observatory suggested that such a platform is most likely to be successful if it connects to issues that ICT researchers identify with, and thus is best built bottom-up. Hannah Maslen, Filippo Santoni de Sio, and Nadira Faulmüller, in Chap. 7, take up the theme of responsibilities in their discussion of psychopharmaceuticals used as cognitive enhancers. The authors outline a theoretical framework and methodology for investigating the claims made in the current enhancement debate that some professionals (such as surgeons or aircraft pilots) have a responsibility to enhance, and the claim that this might lead these professionals to acquire more responsibilities once enhanced. By examining normative hypotheses, psychological data from valorisation groups and lay people, and legal analysis of liability, the authors show how research into the implications of psychopharmaceuticals can be made sensitive to the evolving landscape of public attitudes and professional duties, and at the same time detail the current state of affairs required for immediate policy-making.

Continuing the theme of neuroscience developments, in Chap. 8, Rosanne Edelenbosch, Frank Kupper, and Jacqueline Broerse discuss how focus groups can be used to elicit stakeholder views on the opportunities and concerns of emerging technologies, in this case neuroimaging applications in the context of education and personalised learning. The focus groups show not only that value conflicts emerge, but also that arguments about opportunities and concerns are influenced by the frames in which situations or issues are presented. Frame analysis thus provides a useful addition to the method of focus groups in stakeholder engagement exercises. In Chap. 9, Dirk Haen and colleagues describe how they developed a ‘Discursive Awareness & Techno-Ethical Imagination’ tool which can be used to organise stakeholder dialogues that are hospitable to moral, political, and cultural concerns around technological innovations. The authors critically reflect on the possibilities and limitations of this tool, based on their experience in two stakeholder dialogues on emerging food technologies.

Chapter 10 presents a framework developed by Aad Correljé and colleagues that can be used for responsible innovation in energy projects with a local site impact. The framework is based on Value-Sensitive Design, but applied not (only) to energy technologies but particularly (also) to the institutional design and the set-up of stakeholder interactions. The framework helps to elicit and accommodate the variety of values that is involved in the design of energy projects, and thus may prevent conflicts from arising or escalating between stakeholder groups due to controversies over their value sets. In Chap. 11, Otto J. Kroesen, Rudi Darson, and David J. Ndegwah argue that the development debate and research should pay more attention to the moral aspects of capacity building as part of responsible innovation. Illustrated by two case studies—the introduction of tropical greenhouses in Kenya and the renovation of a vocational school in Surinam—the authors show that different capacities are required in different stages of change trajectories. A responsible innovation approach therefore needs to be flexible, learning, and responsive as a project evolves, so that different values and cultural traits, and the capacities required to observe these, can be accommodated according to time, situation, and need.

Part III offers a set of experiences in concrete applications of responsible innovation, evidencing the growing range of attempts to bring responsible innovation to fruition in everyday practices. The first practice is the adoption of solar photovoltaic technologies in telecommunications towers in Indonesia, described by Andri D. Setiawan and Rajbeer Singh in Chap. 12. The case illustrates the importance and complexities of distributing responsibilities in technological innovation processes. Through stakeholder and impact analysis and applying the process-oriented dimensions of responsible innovation , the authors show how a proportional distribution of accountability and responsibility among stakeholders contributes to a socially acceptable and sustainable innovation. In Chap. 13, John Danaher presents a framework for responsible innovation in neurotechnological applications that are being developed for memory detection (or lie detection) in a forensic context. The framework consists in a legitimacy enhancing test, which results in finding an application acceptable if it would (probably) enhance the legitimacy of a courtroom procedure. The author claims that the test may be usable more widely, to foster responsible innovation in any social epistemic system.

In Chap. 14, Christine Boshuijzen-van Burken and Bart van Bezooijen discuss the case of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in an attempt to understand how soldiers deal with innovations on the battlefield. Within the conceptual framework of normative practices , decision-making by soldiers is investigated through structural analysis and using findings from psychological research that reveal potential changes in behavioural patterns of people exposed to morally laden situations and technology-pervaded situations. These insights may inform designers to help them develop technologies that support responsible decision-making on the battlefield, taking into account both psychological mechanisms and the specific normative context in which decisions are taken. Finally, Annelies Balkema and Auke Pols describe in Chap. 15 how several of the themes discussed in earlier chapters crop up in their case study of jatropha (a plant used for biofuel) cultivation in Tanzania and its negative socio-economic and environmental impacts. By engaging with the most vulnerable group of stakeholders—small farmers in the South—the authors show that biofuel innovation has so far not taken sufficient account of societal and ethical values. They develop a normative framework grounded in sustainability and moral responsibility that can be used to reflect on innovations in biofuels.

Where the conceptual and more reflective chapters on approaches tend to emphasise the challenges of responsible innovation and suggest that the theory—although also under construction and not unproblematic in itself—is easier than the practice, the chapters on applications in responsible innovation show a vibrant practice of responsible innovation, however difficult it may be. Taken together, the body of work in this volume anticipates, reflects, deliberates, and responds to the challenges of responsible innovation. The challenges may be formidable, but the context-sensitive and case-based approaches that pervade this volume, and the many examples of more or less successful attempts at responsible innovation discussed, hold promise to take up those challenges and ultimately to make a difference in how innovation is shaped. As a Chinese saying holds: many small people doing many small things in many small places, can change the face of the world.