From "Death of the Female" to "Life Itself": a socio-historic examination of FINRRAGE

Although questions about the production of knowledge are finally beginning to be asked within social movements studies, these tend to rely on a very vague definition of 'knowledge', obscuring activists' engagement with informal and formal research, as well as social forms of knowledge. This thesis employs an analytic framework in which social movements are theorised as producing a distinctive cognitive praxis, in order to examine the ways in which movements emerge, develop, and operationalise their knowledge in pursuit of their goals. In order to do this, I will create a contextualised case study of the Feminist International Network of Resistance to Reproductive and Genetic Engineering (FINRRAGE), examining the ways it sought to develop a knowledge project around new reproductive technologies and present itself as a network of credible knowers. Beginning as a reaction to a 1984 conference panel on new reproductive technology entitled 'Death of the Female', in its strongest phase (1984-1997) FINRRAGE comprised over a thousand women in thirty-seven countries. Although identified as an instance of radical opposition, its strategy relied upon knowledge generation, rather than protest. Employing a textual analysis of archival documents, published writings and lifecourse interviews with an international selection of twenty-four women, the thesis explores the processes by which the network pursued a project of creating an evidence-based position of resistance to the development of reproductive and genetic technologies through empirical research, publication, and continuous negotiation between women from very different social contexts. As such, the study also provides an opportunity to (re)consider feminist engagement with a specific area of technology over an historical period. It is hoped that the result will be a contribution to the academic literature on the development of collective knowledge and expertise for both social movements theory and science and technology studies, as well as to feminist history and theory

Dis-inviting the Unruly Public

Recently, Welsh and Wynne have argued that policy efforts to include ‘the public’ in dialogue about technoscience have been accompanied by a simultaneous rise in control over uninvited publics, particularly protestors. Research with a group of knowledge-based activists in the UK suggests a further category between invited and uninvited. The concept of an ‘unruly public’ functions within the sociotechnical imaginary to disinvite those whose response is unwanted or unpredictable, while still appearing to be engaging with ‘the public’ as a whole. Listening to the unexpected questions of the unruly public may in fact support, rather than hinder, efforts to incorporate social concerns into frameworks for responsible innovation at both national and European levels

Risk in synthetic biology: views from the lab

How do synthetic biologists think about the risks in their research? This paper reports on a novel elicitation method that got surprising answers. Participants reflected not only on technical, but also on societal and psychological risks and responsibilities. Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), a governance framework supported by many policy makers in the EU and UK, aims to help ensure that societal, as well as technical risks, are addressed at an early stage. However, defining what those risks are is a complex process. We found that when synthetic biologists were allowed to define 'risk' according to their own concerns, they more often chose to explore social and systemic risks to themselves, to science, and to the purposes and motivations of their own research. We argue that RRI as a science governance framework, and synthetic biology as a science, both need to take the wider concerns of scientists in the field as seriously as other potential impacts of emerging technology

An RRI for the Present Moment: Relational and ‘well-up’ innovation

The ultimate framing of the first iteration of RRI as enabling smart, inclusive, sustainable growth had as much to do with the financial crisis then engulfing the Eurozone as meeting the goals of the Lisbon Treaty. Now we have come to the end of Horizon 2020, it is presently unclear how RRI will continue to be addressed as it is mainstreamed into Horizon Europe. In this Perspective, we will argue that discussions about placing responsibility at the centre of innovation should not solely be aimed at promoting GDP-measured growth. Our vision must be longer, more global, more transformative. In this short piece, we explore the possibilities arising through extending ‘responsibility’ to an a-growth approach to innovation, one which emphasises the relational dimensions of responsible innovation through the concept of ‘well up’ economics

Assessing responsible innovation training

There is broad agreement that one important aspect of responsible innovation (RI) is to provide training on its principles and practices to current and future researchers and innovators, notably including doctoral students. Much less agreement can be observed concerning the question of what this training should consist of, how it should be delivered and how it could be assessed. The increasing institutional embedding of RI leads to calls for the alignment of RI training with training in other subjects. One can therefore observe a push towards the official assessment of RI training, for example in the recent call for proposals for centres for doctoral training by UK Research and Innovation. This editorial article takes its point of departure from the recognition that the RI community will need to react to the call for assessment of RI training. It provides an overview of the background and open questions around RI training and assessment as a background of examples of RI training assessment at doctoral level. There is unlikely to be one right way of assessing RI training across institutions and disciplines, but we expect that the examples provided in this article can help RI scholars and practitioners orient their training and its assessment in ways that are academically viable as well as supportive of the overall aims of RI

Making science public: challenges and opportunities

This Programme investigated the relationship between science, politics and publics in the aftermath of an influential 2000 UK House of Lords Science and Society report. We conceptualised top-down initiatives promising greater transparency around the use of scientific evidence in policymaking and opportunities for public engagement around research and innovation agendas, as well as bottom-up instances of public mobilisation around science as an effort to make science public. In principle, such a movement seemed to speak directly to wider arguments for ‘opening up’ controversial domains of evidence and research to public scrutiny of framing, tacit assumptions, and alternative forms of expertise. Yet, these promises raised a number of dilemmas that we sought to examine in a range of cases

Assessing Responsible Innovation Training

There is broad agreement that one important aspect of responsible innovation (RI) is to provide training on its principles and practices to current and future researchers and innovators, notably including doctoral students. Much less agreement can be observed concerning the question of what this training should consist of, how it should be delivered and how it could be assessed. The increasing institutional embedding of RI leads to calls for the alignment of RI training with training in other subjects. One can therefore observe a push towards the official assessment of RI training, for example in the recent call for proposals for centres for doctoral training by UK Research and Innovation. This editorial article takes its point of departure from the recognition that the RI community will need to react to the call for assessment of RI training. It provides an overview of the background and open questions around RI training and assessment as a background of examples of RI training assessment at doctoral level. There is unlikely to be one right way of assessing RI training across institutions and disciplines, but we expect that the examples provided in this article can help RI scholars and practitioners orient their training and its assessment in ways that are academically viable as well as supportive of the overall aims of RI

A global horizon scan of the future impacts of robotics and autonomous systems on urban ecosystems

Technology is transforming societies worldwide. A major innovation is the emergence of robotics and autonomous systems (RAS), which have the potential to revolutionize cities for both people and nature. Nonetheless, the opportunities and challenges associated with RAS for urban ecosystems have yet to be considered systematically. Here, we report the findings of an online horizon scan involving 170 expert participants from 35 countries. We conclude that RAS are likely to transform land use, transport systems and human–nature interactions. The prioritized opportunities were primarily centred on the deployment of RAS for the monitoring and management of biodiversity and ecosystems. Fewer challenges were prioritized. Those that were emphasized concerns surrounding waste from unrecovered RAS, and the quality and interpretation of RAS-collected data. Although the future impacts of RAS for urban ecosystems are difficult to predict, examining potentially important developments early is essential if we are to avoid detrimental consequences but fully realize the benefits

Why COVID-19 needs to be political

In dealing with the COVID-19 virus, a repeated message is that we ought not to politicise the pandemic. At the same time, our social media feeds are replete with stories about how the virus will change the world because it has cruelly laid bare the frailty of our healthcare systems and underscores the need to build more resilient societies in anticipation of future shocks

Genome editing: the dynamics of continuity, convergence, and change in the engineering of life

Genome editing enables very accurate alterations to DNA. It promises profound and potentially disruptive changes in healthcare, agriculture, industry, and the environment. This paper presents a multidisciplinary analysis of the contemporary development of genome editing and the tension between continuity and change. It draws on the idea that actors involved in innovation are guided by “sociotechnical regimes” composed of practices, institutions, norms, and cultural beliefs. The analysis focuses on how genome editing is emerging in different domains and whether this marks continuity or disruption of the established biotechnology regime. In conclusion, it will be argued that genome editing is best understood as a technology platform that is being powerfully shaped by this existing regime but is starting to disrupt the governance of biotechnology. In the longer term is it set to converge with other powerful technology platforms, which together will fundamentally transform the capacity to engineer life