The Fragility of Responsibility: Norway’s Transformative Agenda for Research, Innovation and Business

Attempts to steer research, innovation and business in desirable directions have failed to meet expectations. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and responsible research and innovation (RRI) seem to be losing ground, while the challenges they sought to address remain. Despite their shortcomings, these concepts remind us of the need to take responsibility for what we as researchers and entrepreneurs bring into the world, and to keep questioning the given framework.

Drawing from the experience of the AFINO project, a unique attempt to bring together RRI and CSR and to promote networks, learning and skills building in Norway, this book contextualises and explores the practical challenges of actualising responsible practices even in the propitious Norwegian context. Readers interested in RRI, CSR, transdisciplinarity, and in the governance of research and innovation will find extensive information and insights about the challenges of steering research and business practices towards desirable ends and how to address them.

Giovanni De Grandis is the coordinator of the AFINO research network and the leader of AFINO pilots project, which are experiments in new ways of generating and sharing knowledge and foresight through transdisciplinary collaborations. A philosopher by training, Giovanni first specialised in Political Philosophy and Ethics. Since 2010 he has worked in applied, inter- and trans-disciplinary research and activities. His research has spanned across diverse topics like digital publishing and digital repositories, to public health, urban planning, personalised medicine and pharmaceutical regulations. Giovanni received his PhD from the University of Torino.

Anne Blanchard is a researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities at the University of Bergen. Her background is in Science and Technology Studies, and her overall research interest is about how knowledge is used, and shaped, to inform social and political decision-making processes around complex and uncertain issues. More specifically, in the last few years, she has been looking at what responsible research might mean in practice, by mobilising and teaching, in a critical way, Responsible Research and Innovation and the challenges of its implementation, method and evaluation, and its links to interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research. Anne received her PhD from the University of Bergen.