Spruit Shannon L, Hoople Gordon D, Rolfe David A
Department of Values, Technology and Innovation, Delft University of Technology, P.O. Box 5015, 2600 GA, Delft, The Netherlands.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.
Sci Eng Ethics. 2016 Jun;22(3):871-87. doi: 10.1007/s11948-015-9718-1. Epub 2015 Nov 4.
Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) provides a framework for judging the ethical qualities of innovation processes, however guidance for researchers on how to implement such practices is limited. Exploring RRI in the context of nanotechnology, this paper examines how the dispersed and interdisciplinary nature of the nanotechnology field somewhat hampers the abilities of individual researchers to control the innovation process. The ad-hoc nature of the field of nanotechnology, with its fluid boundaries and elusive membership, has thus far failed to establish a strong collective agent, such as a professional organization, through which researchers could collectively steer technological development in light of social and environmental needs. In this case, individual researchers cannot innovate responsibly purely by themselves, but there is also no structural framework to ensure that responsible development of nanotechnologies takes place. We argue that, in such a case, individual researchers have a duty to collectivize. In short, researchers in situations where it is challenging for individual agents to achieve the goals of RRI are compelled to develop organizations to facilitate RRI. In this paper we establish and discuss the criteria under which individual researchers have this duty to collectivize.
负责任的研究与创新（RRI）为评判创新过程的伦理品质提供了一个框架，然而，关于研究人员如何实施此类实践的指导却很有限。本文在纳米技术背景下探讨RRI，研究纳米技术领域分散性和跨学科性如何在一定程度上阻碍了个体研究人员控制创新过程的能力。纳米技术领域具有临时拼凑的性质，其边界模糊且成员难以界定，迄今为止尚未建立起一个强大的集体机构，如专业组织，通过该机构研究人员能够根据社会和环境需求共同引导技术发展。在这种情况下，个体研究人员无法仅凭自身进行负责任的创新，而且也没有确保纳米技术负责任发展的结构框架。我们认为，在这种情况下，个体研究人员有责任进行集体行动。简而言之，在个体难以实现RRI目标的情况下，研究人员必须组建组织以促进RRI。在本文中，我们确立并讨论了个体研究人员负有这种集体行动责任的标准。
