In this editorial, we engage with the European Commission's 2023 recommendation calling for risk assessment with Member States on four critical technology areas, including quantum technology. A particular emphasis is put on the risks associated with technology security and technology leakage. Such risks may lead to protectionist measures. Mobilising European normative anchor points that inform the “right impacts” of research and innovation, we argue that a protectionist approach on the part of the European Union can lead to moral isolationism. This, in turn, can limit Europe's contribution to global development with respect to technological advances, sustainable development and quality of life. We contend that decisions on protectionism around quantum technology should not be made with a protectionist mindset about European values.@en

Background The objective of this study is to document whether and to what extent there is an association between socioeconomic status (SES) and disease outcomes in the last five influenza pandemics. Methods/principle findings The review included studies published in English, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. Records were identified through systematic literature searches in six databases. We summarized results narratively and through meta-analytic strategies. Only studies for the 1918 and 2009 pandemics were identified. Of 14 studies on the 2009 pandemic including data on both medical and social risk factors, after controlling for medical risk factors 8 demonstrated independent impact of SES. In the random effect analysis of 46 estimates from 35 studies we found a pooled mean odds ratio of 1.4 (95% CI: 1.2-1.7, p < 0.001), comparing the lowest to the highest SES, but with substantial effect heterogeneity across studies, -reflecting differences in outcome measures and definitions of case and control samples. Analyses by pandemic period (1918 or 2009) and by level of SES measure (individual or ecological) indicated no differences along these dimensions. Studies using healthy controls tended to document that low SES was associated with worse influenza outcome, and studies using infected controls find low SES associated with more severe outcomes. A few studies compared severe outcomes (ICU or death) to hospital admissions but these did not find significant SES associations in any direction. Studies with more unusual comparisons (e.g., pandemic vs seasonal influenza, seasonal influenza vs other patient groups) reported no or negative non-significant associations. Conclusions/significance We found that SES was significantly associated with pandemic influenza outcomes with people of lower SES having the highest disease burden in both 1918 and 2009. To prepare for future pandemics, we must consider social vulnerability. The protocol for this study has been registered in PROSPERO (ref. no 87922) and has been published Mamelund et al. (2019).@en

In this Special Issue, authors take stock of the shortcomings and accomplishments of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) by delving into past RRI policies and processes, and by probing possible and desirable RRI futures. Authors weave together old and new approaches, such as social innovation, ecological economics, (techno)feminism, care ethics, postcolonialism, indigenous knowledge systems, and slow science with the aim of reconstituting RRI anew in a global context. The Special Issue extends an invitation to JRI audiences to reflect with authors critically on what has been learned and to imagine new practices and frameworks for the responsible governance of science and innovation alongside other anticipatory, integrative, and participatory frameworks.@en

The notion of “responsible research and innovation” (RRI) and its cognates emerged in response to significant challenges related to the development of nanotechnologies. In this chapter, we trace the rise of RRI from the preresponsible development days through to the emergence of Responsible Innovation in the 2000s and subsequent evolution to RRI in the late 2000s. We home in on a number of key RRI initiatives that have been initiated in response to nanotechnologies and identify key funding programs that have underpinned such work and have contributed to the overall development and uptake of RRI. We address current framings and applications of RRI in other emerging technology areas. Finally, we explore the future of RRI within and beyond the European Union and emphasise the need to evaluate RRI as a policy tool, given significant public sector involvement in the framework.@en

Responsible research and innovation (RRI) has emerged in recent years, especially in Europe, as a science policy framework that (a) seeks to align technological innovation with broader social values and (b) supports institutional decisions concerning the goals and trajectories of research and innovation under conditions of uncertainty, ambiguity and ignorance. Rather than relying simply on consumer choice and market mechanisms on the one hand, or risk-based regulation on the other, RRI seeks to determine what constitute the goals, purposes and trajectories of (and alternatives to) technoscience and innovation, and thus the directions towards which these should be oriented, suggesting that these should be underpinned by shared public values. In addition to this overall philosophy of RRI, the European Commission has focused on five constituent policy keys (sometimes called pillars) of RRI that have their historical roots in the Science-in-Society programme; namely societal engagement, gender in research, open access, science education, and ethics. Action on these keys is seen as integral to an RRI approach and to Europe’s ability to respond to societal challenges. A further issue in the European context concerns how to ‘federate’ the RRI community in the EU and promote institutional changes to foster RRI in research institutions (a topic addressed at the European Commission RRI conference in Rome November 2014). This implies engaging stakeholders, research organisations, universities, funding agencies and public authorities in RRI. Some European research conducting and research funding organisations have begun to make formal policy commitments to RRI; others have developed RRI programmes and others still have embedded explicit RRI elements within broader programmes of emerging technologies and innovation. The European Commission’s ‘open to the world’ agenda implies involving non-European countries in the RRI discourse. However, beyond Europe, in emerging economies in the Global South (Brazil, India and China) and also in some advanced economies (Japan, Australia), there is little awareness of the concept of RRI, although some elements of the EC’s constituent keys have been taken up as thematic priorities by national research organisations. Considerable work needs to be done before RRI is recognised as a concept that offers traction in non-European contexts and research initiatives. There is a dearth of research that has assessed the challenges, efficacy and impact of the ongoing programmes on RRI, partly due to a lack of standardised methodologies that would be required to produce comparative results, and partly because these initiatives are themselves quite new. The project Responsible Research and Innovation in Practice (RRI-Practice), funded by the European Commission Horizon 2020 Science-with-and-for-Society programme (grant no 709 637), is an attempt to respond to this situation. The RRI-Practice project intends to advance European and global awareness of RRI, support its implementation in practice and provide a solid empirical knowledge base on RRI implementation. The main aim of RRI-Practice is to analyse RRI related discourses and pathways to implementation, including barriers and drivers, in a number of research conducting and research funding organisations worldwide, in order to identify, understand, disseminate and promote RRI implementation best practices that can be scaled up at European and global levels. The project started September 2016 and has so far concentrated on mapping the national RRI discourse in the 12 partner countries. As part of this work, national workshops have been held. This paper will present the analytic concept of the project and the results from the workshops, and will reflect on challenges identified in the work so far.@en

This chapter presents the main findings of the EU-funded SATORI project on ethics assessment of research and innovation (R&I) in its first 18 months. It offers summarised descriptions of the ways in which ethics assessment and guidance of R&I are currently practiced in different scientific fields, in different countries in Europe, the United States and China, and in different types of organisations. The main findings include the following. Although the most extensive institutions, policies and activities exist in the medical and life sciences, there is evidence of a growing institutionalisation of ethics assessment in non-medical fields. Increasing coordination and cooperation between ethics assessors can be observed at the EU and global levels. Each of 15 types of organisations that were studied performs an important role in ethics assessment, which may not always be well established and sometimes poses significant challenges. Although significant differences exist among the countries that were studied in terms of the degree to which ethics assessment of R&I is institutionalised, all seem to be expanding their ethics assessment and guidance infrastructures. The findings are an important means by which partners in the SATORI project will take their next steps: the identification of best practices, the development of proposals for harmonisation and shared standards, and, to the extent possible, the proposal of common principles, protocols, procedures and methodologies for the ethical assessment of research and innovation in the European Union and beyond. @en

The potential benefits of nanotechnologies in healthcare are widely expected to be enormous and a considerable amount of investment is already pouring into public research in this area. These high expectations of benefits are coupled with uncertainty surrounding the potential risks of the prospective products containing nanomaterials, in addition to concerns about the adequacy of regulatory oversight. These challenges add another level of uncertainty for those deciding to invest in nanotechnology R&D and threaten to impede product development and commercialisation. Nanotechnology in healthcare (often labelled as nanomedicine) presents a situation where waiting games are a strong possibility; however, waiting games have been avoided (so far) through the unlocking of the dominant regulation regime. This paper describes how an innovation impasse in nanomedicine could have ensued if the traditional wait and watch strategies of legislators and regulators had been followed. We describe how waiting games were avoided through the opening up and distribution of regulatory approaches.@en

Issues of responsibility in the world of nanotechnology are becoming explicit with the emergence of a discourse on ‘responsible development’ of nanoscience and nanotechnologies. Much of this discourse centres on the ambivalences of nanotechnology and of promising technology in general. Actors must find means of dealing with these ambivalences. Actors’ actions and responses to ambivalence are shaped by their position and context, along with strategic games they are involved in, together with other actors. A number of interviews were conducted with industrial actors with the aim of uncovering their ethical stances towards responsible development of nanotechnology. The data shows that standard repertoires of justification of nanotechnological development were used. Thus, the industrial actors fell back on their position and associated responsibilities. Such responses reinforce a division of moral labour in which industrial actors and scientists can focus on the progress of science and technology, while other actors, such as NGOs, are expected to take care of broader considerations, such as ethical and social issues.@en

This perspective paper offers some first thoughts regarding the current Zika virus outbreak and the immediate response it generated in health and research policy. We suggest that in times of emergent health crises, irresponsibilities may arise in the way responses which involve science and technology are framed and implemented. These pertain both to how such situations emerge under a crisis frame, and to pre-existing irresponsibilities which condition how such crises unfold. Reflecting on these irresponsibilities helps to clarify both how crucial it is to promote responsibility in research and innovation in everyday situations, and how important it is to maintain vigilance in times of crisis. We argue that care for the future needs to incorporate attention to persisting inequalities, which become especially salient in moments of emergency and which condition how crises are dealt with and the role innovation is perceived to play in their solution.@en

Human cognitive enhancement (HCE) is an area in which non-therapeutic enhancements have been widely debated. Some applications are already on the market and available for home use (e.g. non-invasive brain stimulation devices), while other forms of enhancement such as ‘smart drugs’ or pharmacological enhancers are readily available (albeit ‘off-label’ or illegally obtained). Private and public interest in HCE may well intensify as the field engages with broader societal trends such as an increasingly competitive work-life and greater demands for productivity, in addition to increased interest in cognitive enhancement more generally. There is thus a need for some dedicated and timely consideration of the area, particularly with regard to governance issues. Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) offers one possible approach that aims to anticipate and reflect on potential implications and societal expectations with respect to research and innovation. This article takes up current work on the HCENAT (Naturalness in Human Cognitive Enhancement) project and offers some essential features of RRI for HCE.@en

This special section addresses Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) as an increasingly global concept that is translated and transformed in heterogenous national contexts. Based on seven national perspective articles from the RRI-Practice project, this introduction outlines a framework of transduction through which RRI becomes contextually negotiated and reconfigured. Read together, the national explorations of the special section make visible aspects of responsibility not readily apparent in abstract, European or global scale discussions of RRI. They not only point up important particularities of national contexts, but unexpected points of overlap in national contexts not often thought to have distinct commonalities.@en

This chapter examines the governance of health technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic and reflects on three interrelated challenges that need to be addressed in future assessment approaches for achieving systemic resilience: problems of scale, trust and politics. The chapter focuses on digital surveillance technologies and vaccines, two cornerstones in the efforts to mitigate the spread of SARS-CoV-2 around the globe. Tracing apps were introduced in many countries, but their effectiveness has been constrained by issues of data privacy, insufficient interoperability and digital inequalities. In parallel, a global research race enabled the development of different vaccines with unprecedented speed, building on innovative biotechnologies. However, vaccination worldwide was marked by disparities in access and controversy. We conclude that governance and assessment should be built around strong international coordination and cooperation, without limiting local experimental learning and innovation. Further, public trust should be considered as a necessary condition for the success of any technological innovation in the health context. As trust in policymakers, academia and industry is strongly context-specific, global governance should also be sensitive to the diversity of social and cultural contexts. Finally, to improve overall systemic resilience, global power imbalances should be addressed in all phases of the innovation process.@en

Leading RRI researchers and practitioners, together with policymakers and stakeholder organisations, discussed the state-of-the-art and future perspectives for RRI at the ‘Pathways to Transformation’ conference in June 2019, an event which was extended beyond Brussels, for instance by ca. 330 original tweets and ca. 840 retweets from ca. 160 unique accounts. In the conference, many participants expressed their concern about an uncertain future for RRI in the EC. As a result, numerous large-scale EU-funded RRI projects signed a Joint Declaration 1, urging the European Commission to make RRI a key objective of the upcoming framework programme, Horizon Europe–a plea to both mainstream the approach across the programme and provide specific resources for strengthening the RRI knowledge base. As the Horizon Europe programme is being forged, it is timely to present the Declaration for a broader audience. @en

The COVID-19 crisis has given us a new, unprecedented impetus for thinking about the imperative of mobility in research. Travel and co-presence are widely accepted as being essential to career progression and promotion in academic life. Academics with fewer opportunities to travel find themselves at a significant disadvantage. COVID-19 and related public health measures have significantly limited the ability to be physically co-present in academia. Addressing obligations of co-presence in a less mobile world allows us to think concretely—and empathetically—about how to improve and extend virtual networking opportunities to those who have been marginalised with respect to research mobility. It also allows us to reflect on the role of reduced mobility and locality in how we think about and enact research. This article is informed and inspired by insights from research addressing academic mobility. I describe and discuss two prospects to productively work towards a new academic modus operandi characterised by limited opportunities for mobility. Furthermore, I highlight those issues and components that will require capacity building and a greater allocation of resources within the research system. In addition, I sketch out some pressing issues and questions for research mobility studies in a less mobile age going forward.</jats:p>@en

This book offers the policy-maker or decision-maker key insights and practical information regarding the features of ethics frameworks best suited to the ethical assessment of human cognitive enhancement (HCE) applications, such as pharmaceutical cognitive enhancers and noninvasive brain stimulation techniques. This book takes as its departure point the entrenched philosophical debate between opponents and proponents of HCE and the increased feasibility of some applications of HCE. Recent calls for policy-making in the area of human enhancement reflect the need to find a balance between addressing current ethical issues and issues that are more speculative in nature or are underpinned by abstract philosophical concepts. Practical ethical approaches for policy or decision-making should enable the development of an evidence base for the risks and benefits of HCE applications. Moreover, such practical approaches should also incorporate a broader range of value bases that would facilitate convergence regarding certain decisions and judgements. This book identifies and evaluate tools that help us to go beyond polarised philosophical debates in order to assist practical decision makers in concrete ethical deliberation and decision-making. The focus is on systematic methods with which to identify relevant ethical values and assess the impacts of an HCE application on those values in order to facilitate decision-making regarding the ethical acceptability or desirability of the application. @en

This chapter delineates some institutional initiatives and supportive tools that aim to enhance scientists' ethical reflexivity and offers a discussion of their objectives and challenges. It reframes the endeavour to 'enhance' reflexivity in terms of capacity building, namely working with the capacities for ethical reflexivity that scientists already possess and facilitating further building of capacities, specifically with regard to the articulation and performance of ethical reflexivity and the broadening of perspectives. The chapter describes and discusses tools and approaches with regard to how they contribute to enabling the articulation and performance of reflexivity. The notion of 'reflexivity' has emerged as a key dimension of responsible research and innovation (RRI), a policy discourse particularly visible at European Union (EU) level since around 2010. The interest in RRI seeks to extend scientific responsibility so as to include future societal impacts of technological development.@en

Background: Pandemic mortality rates in 1918 and in 2009 were highest among those with the lowest socioeconomic status (SES). Despite this, low SES groups are not included in the list of groups prioritized for pandemic vaccination, and the ambition to reduce social inequality in health does not feature in international and national pandemic preparedness plans. We describe plans for a systematic review and meta-analysis of the association between SES and pandemic outcomes during the last five pandemics. Method: The planned review will cover studies of pandemic influenza that report associations between morbidity, hospitalization, or mortality with socioeconomic factors such as education and income. The review will include published studies in the English, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish languages, regardless of geographical location. Relevant records were identified through systematic literature searches in MEDLINE, Embase, Cinahl, SocIndex, Scopus, and Web of Science. Reference lists of relevant known studies will be screened and experts in the field consulted in order to identify other additional sources. Two investigators will independently screen and select studies, and discrepancies will be resolved through discussion until consensus is reached. Covidence will be used. Results will be summarized narratively and using three meta-analytic strategies: coefficients expressing the difference between the highest and lowest socioeconomic groups reported will be pooled using (a) fixed and random effects meta-analysis where studies involve similar outcome and exposure measures and (b) meta-regression where studies involve similar outcome measures. In addition, we will attempt to use all reported estimates for SES differences in (c) a Bayesian meta-analysis to estimate the underlying SES gradient and how it differs by outcome and exposure measure. Discussion: This study will provide the first systematic review of research on the relation between SES and pandemic outcomes. The findings will be relevant for health policy in helping to assess whether people of low socioeconomic status should be prioritized for vaccines in preparedness plans for pandemic influenza. The review will also contribute to the research literature by providing pooled estimates of effect sizes as inputs into power calculations of future studies. Systematic review registration: PROSPERO 87922@en

The Ebola epidemic in West Africa between 2014 and 2015 was the deadliest since the discovery of the virus four decades ago. With the second-largest outbreak of Ebola virus disease currently raging in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, (DRC) it is clear that lessons from the past can be quickly forgotten-or be incomplete in the first instance. In this article, we seek to understand the health challenges facing marginalised people by elaborating on the multiple dimensions of marginalisation in the case of the West Africa Ebola epidemic. We trace and unpack modes of marginalisation, beginning with the “outbreak narrative” and its main components and go on to examine other framings, including the prioritisation of the present over the past, the positioning of ‘Us versus Them’; and the marginalisation-in responses to the outbreak-of traditional medicine, cultural practices and other practices around farming and hunting. Finally, we reflect on the ‘lessons learned’ framing, highlighting what is included and what is left out. In conclusion, we stress the need to acknowledge-and be responsive to-the ethical, normative framings of such marginalisation.@en

Responsible research and innovation (RRI) has come to represent a change in the relationship between science, technology and society. With origins in the democratisation of science, and the inclusion of ethical and societal aspects in research and development activities, RRI offers a means of integrating society and the research and innovation communities. In this article, we frame RRI activities through the lens of layers of science and technology governance as a means of characterising the context in which the RRI activity is positioned and the goal of those actors promoting the RRI activities in shaping overall governance patterns. RRI began to emerge during a time of considerable deliberation about the societal and governance challenges around nanotechnology, in which stakeholders were looking for new ways of integrating notions of responsibility in nanotechnology research and development. For this reason, this article focuses on nanotechnology as the site for exploring the evolution and growth of RRI.@en