Technological Stewardship and Responsible Innovation: A Mindset, an Ethos, and an Interdisciplinary Undertaking

In the foreword to Responsible Innovation: Managing the Responsible Emergence of Science and Innovation in Society, the concept of responsible innovation is pitched as a necessary counterpoint to “innovation’s systemic irresponsibility,” an undertaking that aims to “nudge [technologies’] trajectories in various ways toward responsible, desirable futures”
[1, p. xii]
. Within the leading journal
Responsible Innovation
, the concept is often treated as synonymous with responsible research and innovation (RRI); indeed, the European Commission suggests an overlapping set of aims in its description of RRI as a “comprehensive approach” to developing research methods and new technologies, one that: