Eefje Cuppen

Responsible innovation as an endorsement of public values: the need for interdisciplinary research

This article has a theoretical and a practical objective. The theoretical objective is to conceptualize responsible innovation as the adequate and timely inclusion of public values relevant to technological development. Technological innovations always occur in a specific institutional context, closely connected to stakeholder dynamics. Hence, an ideal approach to responsible innovation requires interdisciplinary research that incorporates: (i) the ethics of technology, to investigate the role of values in design; (ii) institutional theory, to understand the parts played by institutions in realizing values; and (iii) policy, planning and science, technology and society literature, to focus on stakeholder engagement. The practical objective is to explain how this approach can be operationalized. Since values emerge and evolve during the development and implementation of technologies, we take public debate to be the empirical source for extracting public values. Several salient questions need to be addresse...

Contested Technologies and Design for Values: The Case of Shale Gas

Abstract The introduction of new energy technologies may lead to public resistance and contestation. It is often argued that this phenomenon is caused by an inadequate inclusion of relevant public values in the design of technology. In this paper we examine the applicability of the value sensitive design (VSD) approach. While VSD was primarily introduced for incorporating values in technological design, our focus in this paper is expanded towards the design of the institutions surrounding these technologies, as well as the design of stakeholder participation. One important methodological challenge of VSD is to identify the relevant values related to new technological developments. In this paper, we argue that the public debate can form a rich source from which to retrieve the values at stake. To demonstrate this, we have examined the arguments used in the public debate regarding the exploration and exploitation of shale gas in the Netherlands. We identified two important sets of the underlying values, namely substantive and procedural values. This paper concludes with two key findings. Firstly, contrary to what is often suggested in the literature, both proponents and opponents seem to endorse the same values. Secondly, contestation seems to arise in the precise operationalization of these values among the different stakeholders. In other words, contestation in the Dutch shale gas debate does not arise from inter-value conflict but rather from intra-value conflicts. This multi-interpretability should be incorporated in VSD processes.

Responsible Innovation in Energy Projects: Values in the Design of Technologies, Institutions and Stakeholder Interactions

Projects that deal with unconventional ways to produce, store, or transport energy often give rise to resistance by local communities. The value-laden basis of such resistance is often ignored by decision makers. This chapter operationalizes the concept of Responsible Innovation by using and adapting the approach of value sensitive design. This approach holds that the variety of stakeholders’ values might be taken as a point of departure for the (re)design of a technological system in such a way that divergent values can be accommodated. The scope of value sensitive design can be extended beyond the technology, however. Values are also embedded in the institutional context and in the processes of interaction between stakeholders. Hence, the prevention of controversies over conflicting values may be pursued by redesigning the institutional context, and by taking the dynamics of stakeholder interaction explicitly into account.

How stakeholder interactions can reduce space for moral considerations in decision making: A contested CCS project in the Netherlands

We analyse the dynamics of a decision-making process on a contested carbon capture and storage project in The Netherlands by investigating the interactions between the involved stakeholders and how these reinforced, or were shaped by, a meta-frame. Our analysis suggests that from the start of the project, the interactions between stakeholders were shaped by, and reinforced, a goal-rational meta-frame. This frame, and the respective interactions, did not function well in aligning project proponents and the local community. For the latter group, issues were at stake that could not be addressed within the goalrational frame, such as moral considerations of procedural and distributive justice. Yet it was a very powerful frame that remained dominant and kept being reproduced throughout the process. Our analysis suggests that policy processes on projects like this should create interactions that leave open the opportunity for divergent, latent frames to become articulated. We identify three challenges for policy and planning of low-carbon technologies concerning the need for frame reflexivity in planning and decision making, the articulation of divergent stakeholder views and the design of stakeholder interactions.

Bias in the exchange of arguments: the case of scientists’ evaluation of lay viewpoints on GM food

Most perspectives on public participation share the notion that dialogues should be open, allowing participants to articulate and evaluate different views and knowledge claims. We hypothesize that participants’ evaluation of claims may be biased because participants have a preference for a particular type or source of a claim. This would hamper an open dialogue. We tested the effect of three variables on scientists’ evaluation of claims of the general public about GM food: the claim’s favorability towards GM food, the phrasing, and the source of the claim. Results are based on a survey-experiment among 73 biotechnology-scientists. Biased processing occurred when scientists evaluated claims. Claims that were corresponding with the attitude of the scientists and that were phrased in a cognitive way were evaluated more positively than claims that were contrasting the attitude of the scientists and that were phrased in an affective way. Contrary to our expectation, scientists evaluated claims of the public more positively than claims of experts.

Unravelling emotional viewpoints on a bio-based economy using Q methodology

A transition to a bio-based economy will affect society and requires collective action from a broad range of stakeholders. This includes the public, who are largely unaware of this transition. For meaningful public engagement people’s emotional viewpoints play an important role. However, what the public’s emotions about the transition are and how they can be taken into account is underexposed in public engagement literature and practice. This article aims to unravel the public’s emotional views of the bio-based economy as a starting point for public engagement. Using Q methodology with visual representations of a bio-based economy we found four emotional viewpoints: (1) compassionate environmentalist, (2) principled optimist, (3) hopeful motorist and (4) cynical environmentalist. These provide insight into the distinct and shared ways through which members of the public connect with the transition. Implications for public engagement are discussed.

Participatory assessment: tools for empowering, learning and legitimating?

Since the 1960s, a large number of participatory assessment tools and methods have been developed for use in a wide variety of policy venues and fields. There are many opinions on what participatory tools are about. As will be explained, these relate in large part to ongoing debates about the goals of participation. Hence, there is no shared authoritative definition of participatory tools and this chapter has no intention of developing one. Rather pragmatically, it distinguishes between participatory methods, which refer to procedures, and participatory tools, which relate to steps in a procedure. Just as an authoritative definition of participatory assessment tools and methods is lacking, so too is consensus over the outcome they aim at. What they have in common and what makes them distinct from other (social) science methods and tools is that they assist in bringing people together at a specific location (which could include the Internet) and facilitate some sort of joint assessment (Hisschemöller 2005). Hence, the distinctive features of participatory methods and tools are that they facilitate dialogue as a way to come to grips with complex (unstructured) decision problems that cannot be addressed by scientific expertise alone. Given this definition, participatory tools overlap with some of the other policy formulation tools that also employ stakeholder involvement (for example, participatory modelling or participatory multi-criteria analysis (MCA)). Participatory assessment needs to be distinguished from legal procedures for political participation that are mandatory in many countries and sometimes also prescribed by international law. Its use is broadly recommended and facilitated by international organizations, for example the World Bank (1996), UNHCR (2006) and the World Food Programme (2001). Participatory assessment tools and methods are used to assist mandatory

Formal and Informal Assessment of Energy Technologies

Societal controversies on the implementation of new energy technologies relate to public values that are affected by these new technologies. The process of specifying and articulating these values and assessing technologies based on those values follows both a formal and an informal trajectory. This chapter studies the interplay between such formal and informal assessment in the case of two plans for the implementation of energy technologies in the Netherlands, the project to develop carbon capture and storage in the municipality of Barendrecht and the project to have explorative drilling for shale gas in the municipality of Boxtel. What these studies reveal is that values that are specified by actors emerge from different discourses. These discourses do not emerge independently, but develop in mutual interaction, at times contributing to a progressive entrenchment of positions. To avoid such a situation, the symmetry between different claims for the public interest needs to be attended by policy makers.

Crowd-based innovaties: verschuivende verantwoordelijkheden in een institutional void

The crowd increasingly plays a key role in facilitating innovations in a variety of sectors, spurred on by IT developments and the concomitant increase in connectivity. Initiatives in this direction, captured under the umbrella term ‘crowd-based innovations’, offer novel opportunities in socio-technical systems by increasing the access, reach and speed of services. At the same time, they signify important challenges because these innovations occur in a context of traditional, well-established institutional and governance structures and practices. This dynamic is captured in the idea of the ‘institutional void’: the tension between traditional structures and (radically) new initiatives. Existing rules, standards and practices are challenged, which raises questions about the safeguarding of public values such as quality, legitimacy, efficiency and governance of crowd-based innovations. This article argues that understanding these tensions requires supplementing empirical research with an explicitly normative dimension to reach thorough and balanced conclusions to facilitate innovation while protecting the valuable elements in existing rules and regulations. Illustrated by a number of short examples, we propose a multidisciplinary research agenda towards formulating appropriate governance structures.

Science communication and Responsible Research and Innovation : How can they complement each other?

In todays society a variety of challenges need attention because they are considered to affect our well-being. Many of these challenges can be addressed with new innovations, yet they may also introduce new challenges. Communication of these new innovations is vital. This importance is also addressed by the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation. In the present commentary we draw on a dataset of 196 research projects and discuss the two research streams of Science Communication and Responsible Research and Innovation and how they are complements to each other. We conclude with suggestions for practitioners and scientists.