Responsible research and innovation: an opportunity to reframing science (and technological) education?

Abstract

The term Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is gaining currency across Europe and worldwide aiming a better alignment between responsiveness and governance of scientific knowledge production, innovation and citizen participation facing current grand challenges we are living. This broad and complex purpose has been simplified with a normative framework involving six dimensions labeled as public engagement in research and innovation, science literacy and scientific education, gender equality, open access to scientific knowledge, research results and data, governance and ethics. This paper analyses the rationale and ways by which RRI is being introduced in science education field, including 13 projects developed in both formal and informal education. We apply a heuristic approach building on an extensive literature review focusing on Relevance and Responsible Science Education (RSE) and the recent framework proposed by Stilgoe et al. (2013), which comprises the principles of anticipation, reflexivity, inclusion and responsiveness. Our findings show a limited advance in both the understanding and benefits in the implementation of RRI and the existence of fragmented initiatives where the concept remains underdeveloped. The uncritical implementation of RRI and the emphasis in ‘responsibility’ linked to research contrasts with the scarce knowledge of what innovation and ‘responsible innovation’ mean and could contribute to increase imbalances rather than overcoming current barriers in science education. They also reveal the opportunity to open up the debate on a number of aspects ignored or barely considered to date and provide some suggestions for new research avenues in the science education field. In particular, we propose to broaden the inter-disciplinary studies towards comprehensive scopes on the Nature of Science, Technology and Innovation (NoSTI).