Table Of Content

Responsive Ethics and Participation Innovation and Responsibility Set coordinated by Bernard Reber and Robert Gianni Volume 9 Responsive Ethics and Participation Science, Technology and Democracy Kalli Giannelos Bernard Reber Neelke Doorn First published 2022 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address: ISTE Ltd John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 27-37 St George’s Road 111 River Street London SW19 4EU Hoboken, NJ 07030 UK USA www.iste.co.uk www.wiley.com © ISTE Ltd 2022 The rights of Kalli Giannelos, Bernard Reber and Neelke Doorn to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s), contributor(s) or editor(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of ISTE Group. Library of Congress Control Number: 2022939233 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-78630-756-9 Contents Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Bernard REBER Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii Chapter 1. Defining Ethics and Participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.1. Ethical challenges in research and innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1.1.1. Ethics in governance of research and innovation . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1.1.2. Bottom-up approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 1.2. Facing responsibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 1.2.1. The notion of responsibility in innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 1.2.2. Ethics and technology assessment: at the root of responsible innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 1.2.3. From ethics of technology to responsible research and innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 1.3. Public participation and the ideal of participatory democracy . . . . . . 22 1.3.1. Public participation in research and innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 1.3.2. Participation in technology assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 1.3.3. From broad participatory practices to deliberation . . . . . . . . . . 29 1.4. The diverse field of participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 1.4.1. Defining participatory activities: types and timelines . . . . . . . . . 33 1.4.2. Defining participants: types of actors and visions of engagement . 37 1.4.3. Finding value in participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 1.4.4. Models of participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 1.5. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 vi Responsive Ethics and Participation Chapter 2. Regulations on Ethics and Participation . . . . . . . . . . . 49 2.1. Policies and regulations on the ethics of innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 2.1.1. Main regulations on research ethics and research integrity . . . . . 49 2.1.2. Ethics assessment: a standard in European funding programs . . . . 54 2.2. Analysis of current European regulations on ethics and participation . 58 2.2.1. The different institutional configurations for ethics and participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 2.2.2. The current deadlocks of European regulatory bodies . . . . . . . . 63 2.2.3. Ethics of participation: current boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 2.3. Soft law on participatory approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 2.3.1. Re-shaping participatory approaches through soft law: toward a normative instrument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 2.4. Beyond regulations: institutional needs for ethical participation. . . . . 73 2.4.1. The needs from a governance point of view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 2.4.2. Identifying good practices and criteria for ethical participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 2.5. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Chapter 3. Ethical Participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 3.1. How mainstream is citizen participation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 3.1.1. A case study on research funding organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 3.1.2. Citizens’ low involvement in R&I processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 3.1.3. Prevailing types of participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 3.2. Leveraging the funding of R&I for a novel approach to participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 3.2.1. Context-sensitive specificities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 3.2.2. Expectations and legitimacy in the funding of R&I . . . . . . . . . . 104 3.2.3. The impact of participatory practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 3.3. Addressing the needs of research funding organizations . . . . . . . . . 114 3.3.1. Standardized approaches and the European discrepancies . . . . . . 114 3.3.2. Ethical grounds meeting public scrutiny . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 3.4. Toward an ethics framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 3.4.1. Finding common paths and compromises in R&I governance . . . 119 3.4.2. Main critical factors facing institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 3.5. An ethics framework for participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 3.5.1. Some guidelines for future ethics frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 3.5.2. A tentative ethics framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 Contents vii Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 Appendix 1: Categories Considered in the Case Study on Research Funding Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 Appendix 2: Tentative Ethics Framework. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Foreword Participatory democracy is usually promoted as a key instrument in the leveraging of the responsibility and accountability of science and technology developments regarding society. Science and technology, or “research and innovation” (R&I), covers virtually all innovation developments – of either a scientific or technological nature – that can be applied to any sector. Past studies have revealed the great diversity of participatory configurations and the varying quality of participation, leading some to consider that participation’s added value in R&I might not be an intrinsic attribute. This calls into question the grounds on which ethical participation can be established, as Pellé and Reber (2016) have already shown. What is usually covered by “participation”, “engagement” or “involvement” in R&I can vary according to the context and the normative understandings, thereby generating a homogeneous representation of practices that are not always clearly identified or convergent. Participation remains a gray area in R&I and even in responsible research and innovation (RRI), where several mechanisms compete with the same promise to legitimize and offer a co-creation process or dialog between science (and technology) and society. Moreover, new technologies are ambiguous and complex, asking reconsideration of their relationships within humans (Guchet, 2021). Taking a step backward and considering participatory practices from a governance perspective, echoing reflexive (Maesschalck, 2017) and pluralist governance (Reber, 2016), this book studies the way R&I institutions deal x Responsive Ethics and Participation with participatory mechanisms and provides the tools to understand the uneven or even unstable ground forming the ethical basis for these mechanisms. Despite the great public attention and the growing institutional (and governmental) support provided to public participation in Europe, the legitimacy of these mechanisms throughout their design, implementation and follow-up is not a given. This book aims at bringing together innovation ethics with participatory practices, asking what an ethical participation could be and presenting a critical theoretical analysis of the definitions and the regulations shaping both the fields of innovation ethics and of participation in R&I. It continues the work of Sophie Pellé (2017) in business studies. Responsibility and responsiveness imply taking a critical stance on participation, considering how participation is justified, what the goals or outcomes to be targeted are, and the nature and the scope of the underlying ethical issues. It means taking into account the preservation of the freedom and responsibilities of the actors involved (Lenoir, 2019). In addition, participatory processes relate to varying interests on behalf of the participants, thus requiring further examination of who has an interest in an R&I process, might be affected by its outcomes or might contribute to new solutions: these questions are an integral part of the legitimacy of participatory processes. At the same time, the timescale and the resources of participation have to be examined as well, as they shape the nature and degree of involvement. All of them have their part to play in the programs to develop individual and collective competencies (Loisy and Coulet, 2018). Building on the overall blurred vision that R&I literature and practices showcase regarding participation, this book combines theoretical considerations with policy-making and empirical insights. The main orientation of this study draws from the conclusions of past publications, which have highlighted the overall lack of understanding of why, how and in view of what quality participatory practices are undertaken (Pellé and Reber, 2016). These questions are here addressed through the scope of an original methodology, empirically tested and improved, aiming at developing new taxonomies and definitions. This book reveals the lack of common understanding around consensual terms such as “citizens”, “stakeholders”, “participation” and “ethics”. Also, an additional layer of complexity appears with the diversity of institutionalized mechanisms, some of them being formalized, others not, Foreword xi and with a diversified connection to ethics. It also reveals how little equipped R&I institutions can sometimes be when it comes to resources and guidance for participatory practices and for ethics (Gianni, 2016). Understanding what participation means is all the more difficult when the ethical grounds on which it can be set are not identified and when it is not clear which ethical risks or issues can be at stake. From the perspective of R&I governance, building a framework for an ethical participation implies considering the ethical requirements of both innovation and of participation, and thereby defining a method that could allow for increased legitimacy and adaptation of participatory mechanisms. As participation requires resources (both human and financial), expertise and commitment, the need for guidance and tools to design and implement processes that are both adaptive and legitimate would be a requisite for a “responsive” participation (Reber, 2022). The analysis of the grounds on which participatory processes can be ethically developed and conducted forms the bedrock of this study. In the governance of R&I, ethics procedures are not necessarily formalized and may not cover all processes throughout their lifetime. Similarly, when the public is invited in consultation, co-creation or any other participatory activity, the design and involvement are not necessarily part of a formalized process, nor do they necessarily abide by specific rules ensuring the quality of the initiative and its added value. From the inception to the ex post evaluation of the R&I outcomes, having a responsive participatory mechanism remains an ideal for which tools, understanding and capacities might be lacking. The ideal of participatory democracy encounters profound challenges and critique over its effective connection to decision-making and regarding whether its actual impact aligns with democratic values. What if ethics and participation in R&I governance could be combined in a comprehensive and responsive system? This is the question and the guiding hypothesis of this book, which also methodically anchors the touchstone of an ethical participation. Observing how the governance of R&I struggles to harmonize the processes and the means deployed to promote public participation – citizens and stakeholders – in science and technology, it seems timely to overcome the conceptual and practical hurdles through a comprehensive approach.