Bringing Solidarity into Responsible Innovation

by Darian Meacham (Maastricht University)

In this talk I will discuss how the concept of solidarity might be brought into the paradigm and practices of "Responsible Innovation." Responsible Innovation is a set of varying ideas and practices designed to better align techno-scientific research and innovation with societal values and challenges. Varying models of responsible innovation have been introduced across European and national (UK, Netherlands, Norway for example) scientific research funding programmes, perhaps most notably the European Commission's Horizon2020. There are also increasing calls for focus on solidarity as a societal desideratum and the generation of solidarities as a societal challenge - especially in relation to other challenges such as inequality and climate change. How then could we go about bringing the notion and practices of solidarity into the responsible innovation paradigm?