Politicizing Responsible Innovation: Responsibility as Inclusive Governance

This paper aims to provide the historical and conceptual bases underlying the inclusionary transition of European innovation policy, and critical analysis of the difficulties relating to the political nature of this transition. In the 50s and 60s of last century, linear innovation models operated on the basis of a clear division of roles among the different actors in innovation and fundamentally economistic-based strategies. The following decades saw innovation policies progressively recognize the multi-dimensional and complex nature of innovation and the need to make adjustments, but always in explicit response to the competitiveness imperative. More recent RRI (Responsible Research and Innovation) strategy within the European Union, in contrast, demands opening up the whole innovation process (including values and motivations) to collective decision, i.e., approaching responsible innovation as inclusive innovation. This paper appraises this important development primarily on the basis of in-depth analysis of the main policy literature on innovation, and also on the grounds of related academic literature. As a result, we conclude that the bid for collaboration models cohabits constitutively with another set of dynamics aimed at strengthening centralized and prescriptive forms of innovation. In other words, that inclusionary or political eagerness represented through RRI must grapple with the strategic imperative of competitiveness and economic development. Hence, fundamental tension exists, which should be elucidated in light of the objectives, demands and considerations that are integrated, and cease to be integrated, in innovation dynamics and trajectories.