Experimentation, learning, and dialogue: an RRI-inspired approach to dual-use of concern

ABSTRACT

Responsible Research and Innovation is promoted by research funders and scientific communities as a way to place societal needs and values at the centre of research and innovation. In practice, however, legal compliance still tends to dominate the RRI agenda. In order to move beyond the dominance of legal compliance and address a broader societal agenda, this article argues that RRI requires: (1) a productive intertwining of research and practice; (2) the integration of anticipation, reflection, engagement, and action (AREA) in a non-linear process; and (3) an experimental approach. Based on this framework, this article draws on our experience of developing and institutionalizing an RRI-inspired approach to address dual-use and misuse issues in the EU-funded Human Brain Project. Our experience suggests that the four dimensions of the AREA framework work better not as separate stages but rather being flexibly intertwined to enable experimentation, learning, and dialogue.

KEYWORDS:

• Responsible Research and Innovation
• dual-use
• AREA framework
• experimentation
• learning
• dialogue

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to reviewers and editors for their valuable feedback and support. We would like to thank Kathinka Evers, Nikolas Rose, Christine Aicardi and Bernd Carsten Stahl for their helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier version of this article. This article has benefited from collaborations and conversations with many of our HBP colleagues over the years. Presentation at the 2021 virtual IPSA World Congress of Political Science helped to shape some of the ideas outlined in this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The Project receives approximately 400 million Euros from the EU Framework Programmes (FP7 and Horizon 2020) over a 10-year timeframe (2013–2023), and between 4% and 5% of the HBP budget has been devoted to Ethics & Society research.

3 The HBP, now in its last phase, has been restructured from 12 sub-projects into 9 work packages.

4 https://epsrc.ukri.org/research/framework/area/.

5 https://www.darpa.mil/program/our-research/darpa-and-the-brain-initiative.

6 Additionally, the term ‘Responsible Dual Use’ has been used before but without linking it to RRI (e.g. Forge 2013).

7 The HBP in its final three-year period has, in a similar spirit, embedded philosophy and neuroethics tasks within all the science work packages, in addition to a work package devoted to RRI specifically.

Additional information

Funding

The research reported in this article has received funding from the EU’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreements No. 720270 (HBP SGA1), No.785907 (HBP SGA2) and 945539 (HBP SGA3).

Notes on contributors

Inga Ulnicane

Inga Ulnicane has extensive international and interdisciplinary experience of research, teaching and engagement in the field of science, technology and innovation governance. Her scientific publications and commissioned reports focus on topics such as European research and innovation policies, international research collaboration, Grand societal challenges, Artificial Intelligence, and dual-use. She has worked at the University of Vienna (Austria), University of Twente (Netherlands), University of Latvia and Latvian Academy of Sciences, and has been visiting scientist at the University of Manchester (UK) and Georgia Institute of Technology (US). Currently, she is at De Montfort University (UK).

Tara Mahfoud

Tara Mahfoud is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the Department of Sociology at the University of Essex. Before that, she was a Research Associate in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at King’s College London and a member of the Human Brain Project Foresight Lab. Her work explores the social and political contexts and implications of developments in the neurosciences.

Arleen Salles

Arleen Salles is a Senior Researcher in philosophy at the Center for Research Ethics and Bioethics (CRB) at Uppsala University (Sweden). She is the Deputy Leader of the Responsible Research and Innovation Work Package of the EU-flagship Human Brain Project where she is a researcher and leads the task Neuroethics and Engagement. She is also Board member of the International Neuroethics Society, Board member of the Institute of Neuroethics (IoNx) and serves as a member of the International Brain Initiative Neuroethics Working Group. Her current research focuses on neuroethics, particularly the normative, epistemic, and ontological implications of neuroscientific findings and its applications (including brain-inspired artificial intelligence).