Hannot Rodríguez

The European Union is strategically committed to the development of nanotechnology and its industrial exploitation. However, nanotechnology also has the potential to disrupt human health and the environment. The EU claims to be committed to the safe and responsible development of nanotechnology. In this sense, the EU has become the first governing body in the world to develop nanospecific regulations, largely due to legislative action taken by the European Parliament, which has compensated for the European Commission’s reluctance to develop special regulations for nanomaterials. Nevertheless, divergences aside, political bodies in the EU assume that nanotechnology development is controllable and take for granted that both the massive industrial use of nanomaterials and a high level of environmental and health protection are compatible. However, experiences such as the European controversy over agri-food biotechnology, which somewhat delegitimized the regulatory authority of the EU over technological safety and acceptability, arguably show that controllability assumptions are contestable on the grounds of alternative socio-economic and cultural preferences and values. Recently developed inclusive governance models on safety and innovation, such as “Responsible Research and Innovation”, widely claim that a diversity of considerations and issues are integrated into R&D processes. Even so, the possibility of more radically alternative constitutions of socio-technical safety seems to be seriously limited by the current ideology of innovation and economic imperatives of the global, knowledge-based, capitalist economy.

[EN]The heuristic versatility of foresight is increasingly positioning this anticipatory instrument as a key resource to promote more responsible research and innovation practices. In a context where foresight's multiple heuristic potential is sometimes wrapped up in a promissory rhetoric that could lead to its being taken for granted, this article underlines the need to understand the emergence of these heuristics as being dependent on how foresight's dynamics unfold. By acknowledging the existence of more "open" or "closed" forms of foresight (which in turn can articulate more "open" or "closed" anticipations), the article argues that the degree of "openness/ closure" of foresight activities is constituted during the ex-ante, ex-dure and ex-post processes, and according to the relations underlying their constructive dynamics. The main conclusion reached is that a pre-condition for foresight practices to become "instruments for" responsible innovation is to make them "subjects of" responsibility simultaneously. This involves monitoring the socioepistemic relations whereby foresight practices are designed and executed, as well as monitoring how their emergent heuristics are translated into action.

[EN]In recent decades, problems related to the accessibility and sustainability of science have increased, both in terms of the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge and its generation. Policymakers, academics, and, increasingly, citizens themselves have developed various approaches to this issue. Among them, citizen science is distinguished by making possible the generation of scientific knowledge by anyone with an interest in doing so. However, participation alone does not guarantee knowledge generation, which represents an epistemological challenge for citizen science. Simultaneously, economic and socio-institutional difficulties in science governance and maintenance have grown. To solve those problems, several market elements have been introduced, a solution rejected by those who consider science as a public good that states must guarantee. Alternatively, research and work on the commons are growing worldwide, the concept being extended from natural resources to knowledge resources. In this chapter, we propose science as a commons, underlining the essential role of citizen science. Difficulties also apply to citizen science itself, but the increasing development of a multitude of projects based on cooperation favours the conditions required for its sustainability and quality. Our philosophical proposal is based on empirical knowledge about citizen science coupled with socio-economic concepts, according to a sociopolitical epistemology.

La búsqueda institucional de una innovación responsable se ha centrado en gran parte en el control de los impactos negativos del progreso científico-tecnológico. Así, las propias dinámicas de la ciencia y la tecnología han tendido a abordarse como un fenómeno autónomo, impermeable al escrutinio crítico. Sin embargo, iniciativas más recientes de las políticas científicas de la UE, tales como Responsible Research and Innovation u Open Science, dicen abogar por que los propios procesos de ciencia e innovación sean objeto de debate inclusivo. Aparentemente representativas de un avance sustancial respecto al modelo de control de riesgos, su capacidad para transformar las prácticas científico-tecnológicas es, sin embargo, también limitada, al verse constreñidas igualmente por un horizonte normativo caracterizado por la asunción de que el progreso tecno-industrial es por principio armonizable con todo tipo de hitos sociales, ecológicos y sanitarios.