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Library Element Article

Mapping ‘social responsibility’ in science✎

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Uploaded by RRI Tools on 01 November 2015

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BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES ✎

Glerup, C., and Horst, M. (2014), Mapping ‘social responsibility’ in science, Journal of Responsible Innovation, 1(1), 31-50.

This article employs the Foucauldian notion of ‘ political rationality ’ to map discussions and ideals about the responsibility of science toward society. By constructing and analysing an archive of 263 journal papers, four political rationalities were identified: the Demarcation rationality, which aims to exclude the social from the scientific production in order to make it objective and thereby responsible; the Reflexivity rationality, which sees it as science ’ s responsibility to let itself be guided by problems in society in choice of research focus and methods; the Contribution rationality, which insists that responsible science should live up to public demands for innovation and democracy; and the Integration rationality, which advocates that science should be co-constructed with societal actors in order to be socially responsible. While each rationality is distinct, the article argues that all of them address the issue of a boundary (or integration) between science and society. Hence, it is not possible for scientists to avoid ‘a relationship ’ with society. The political question is how this relationship is to be defined and regulated.