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Paper long abstract:

Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is still a new conception made compulsory for European Commission funded projects in the Programme Horizon 2020. RRI still remains an addition of heterogeneous elements (a):

1) Engagement and participation of societal actors in research and innovation (public engagement),

2) Science literacy and scientific education (education).

3) Ensuring gender equality in both the process and content (gender),

4) Open Access to scientific knowledge, results and data; (open access);

5) Ethical dimension (ethics and governance).

From a philosophical perspective we will firstly present a critical discussion of this collection of requisites mentioned before. Indeed it is not obvious to establish a logical link with responsibility.

We will then connect RRI with some parts of the philosophical debate around the rich concept of responsibility, starting with the different conceptions of responsibility (b): cause/consequences, accountability, responsiveness, role, authority and competence. We will select and exploit some relevant debates beyond theses interpretations useful for RRI.

Thirdly, we will consider different approaches in the field of responsibility in organizations. We will reduce our scope to responsibility (c) as accountability (collective) and virtue (individual). This step will carry us until the delicate problem of shared responsibility, with three levels: (a) elements of RRI EC definition, (b) conceptions of moral responsibility, (c) collective and individual responsibility.

We will finally see how shared responsibility can be translated in term of governance.