Beyond responsible research and innovation
Using an approach that does not uncritically accept the concept of RRI and seek to ‘employ’ it, but scrutinising the very assumptions and values that lead to the conceptualisation and enactment of responsibility in the research context. This research theme also links to questions about the value (and values) of science that are such a topical theme in politics at the moment.
Trust and trustworthiness
How do people trust science and technology? How can institutions and practices in science and technology enhance or assert their trustworthiness? How can researchers, increasingly required to collaborate across research fields, get to trust each other in the first place?
Reframing societal questions
The role of social science in reframing questions and providing answers (twisting the usual ‘speaking truth to power’ into ‘speaking power to truth’, in Nick Manning’s words). Critical social science research cannot suffice with providing answers to questions posted by funders and policy makers, but we need to scrutinise the assumptions that go into how questions are being posed (e.g. ‘nudging’ debate).
Cross-cutting theme: Local & global
Cutting across these topics, are the tensions between global and local, and within ‘global’ itself. Situatedness and multiculturalism are hallmarks of the research conducted by BioS members, and gives us, as a group, a unique potential for comparative and transnational inquiries, that can address the complex dynamics between local contexts and global politics in the production, circulation and transformation of bio-techno-scientific knowledge.