Paper short abstract:

RRI aims at overcoming the traditional forms of responsibilitiy such as liability or compensation, aiming at steering the innovation process in a participative manner by constructing responsibility as a shared process between innovators and societal stakeholders.

Paper long abstract:

RRI deals with situations in which a) knowledge is uncertain at epistemic level and b) consent is contested at the social level, advocating innovators' early commitment towards the achievement of common societal values and goals, by voluntarily engaging their responsibility for the broad environmental and societal outcomes of their action already at an early stage, going beyond the strict limits of what is mandated by the law.

RRI claims actors' reciprocal responsibilisation where, unlike the logic of liability or accountability, responsibility has to be intended in terms of a voluntary commitment (responsiveness), which implies the use of non-legal self-regulatory instruments, (ranging from codes of conduct, guidelines and technical standards, to reporting schemes, audits and similar), as they could grant participation and power sharing between those whose activities are to be (self-)regulated and the stakeholders better than traditional forms of regulation.

This paper wants to contribute to a better understanding of the articulation between the different dimensions of responsibility and its implications, as there is a structural tension within RRI between the individual commitment to responsibility, in one side, and the promotion of collective values and rights, so that it is crucial to sketch out what are the normative implications of RRI model and the "normative anchor points" of RRI practices.