Turning the tide or surfing the wave? Responsible Research and Innovation, fundamental rights and neoliberal virtues

The notion of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) has increasingly attracted attention in the academic literature. Up until now, however, the literature has focused on clarifying the principles for which research and innovation are responsible and on examining the conditions that account for managing them responsibly. Little attention has been reserved to exploring the political-economic context in which the notion of RRI has become progressively more prominent. This article tries to address this aspect and suggests some preliminary considerations on the connections between the specific understanding of responsibility in RRI and the framing of responsibility in what has been synthetically defined as \u2018neoliberalism\u2019. To do so, we try to illustrate how the idea of responsibility has evolved over time so that the specific characteristics of RRI can be better highlighted. These characteristics will then be discussed against the features of neoliberalism and its understanding of responsibility. Eventually, we reaffirm a view of RRI centred on fundamental rights as a possible point of departure between these two perspectives on responsibility

How can we characterize nano-specific soft regulation? Lessons from occupational health and safety governance

Soft regulation is a widely used instrument in the governance of emerging technologies, especially in the governance of nanotechnologies. So far, evaluations on the effects of nano-specific soft regulation cannot build on a coherent and consistent typology. Characterization of soft regulation is important for empirical research (case selection) and policy recommendations. This chapter develops a characterization scheme that serves to depict soft regulation that is established to support risk assessment and risk management of emerging technologies. The characterization scheme is tested in four examples of nano-specific soft regulation that focus on occupational health and safety issues. The preliminary evaluation of the testing exercise indicates that the classification scheme can stimulate critical reflection on the quality of the regulatory design by touching on gaps and problems of clarity and consistency. It shows also how beneficial the scheme can be to signal potential effectiveness problems. The scheme is a very first step towards a more sophisticated typology with refined and extended categories that provide a broader frame for the evaluation of the effectiveness of technology-related regulation

Horen, zien en verkrijgen?

To inform parents about and protect children and adolescents against violent or otherwise harmful media content, a system of self-regulation was introduced in the Netherlands. Both systems (Kijkwijzer and PEGI) are being maintainded by the lines of business concerned, consisting of television broadcasting stations, cinemas, video and dvd rental companies, libraries, department stores, toy stores, cd/dvd stores and computer game shops. This report focuses on the effectiveness and functioning of both systems of self-regulations, with special emphasis on the degree of compliance with the age restrictions prescribed

Rechtsgueterschutz in der Informationsgesellschaft Bericht ueber das Projekt: Rechtliche Beherrschung der Informationstechnik Diskurs zwischen Wissenschaft und Praxis ueber notwendige Weiterenticklung von Datenschutzkonzepten angesichts technischer Innovationen. Abschlussbericht

The existing legal regulations are only to a certain extent apt to have an effective impact on information technology. The goal of the project was to outline the legal problems in information society and to come up with proposals to handle them. For this reason there were discussions in which scientists of various subjects, administrative experts and business representatives took part. The outcome of this process was that challenges for the legal system resulting from information technology can only be faced through the implementation of various measures: data protection, computer criminal law, professional codes of conduct, self-regulation, safety and security technology, economic impulses. Procedures in the course of which information technology is subject to negotiations will be of great importanceAvailable from TIB Hannover: F93B938+a / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEBundesministerium fuer Forschung und Technologie (BMFT), Bonn (Germany)DEGerman

Security applications for converging technologies : impact on the constitutional state and the legal order

The impact of converging technologies on legal practice and criminology is being investigated in a forward looking study intended for practitioners and policy makers in the field of legislation, crime prevention, and law enforcement. This report consists of three parts. The first part describes the state of the art and future expectations on nano-, bio-, ICT and cognitive science and technology, as well as their convergence. The second part describes the (future) applicability of converging technologies to our application domain, in particular in three cases. This part ends with scenarios that are used as a means to ‘visualize’ the developments and an input for the impact analysis. In the third part the scenarios are analysed on their ethical, legal and social implications. This part describes the major social and normative trends that are observed