The RRI Challenge

3EU Governance of RTD and the Market

3.1. On governance and good governance: order with/out authority?

The notion of governance is considered to be very important in establishing the reality of RRI as practice. In this chapter, we need to explore in more depth how the EU’s reliance on the notions of governance and good governance contributes to advancing a particular understanding of the role of the market in shaping and implementing RTD policies.

In the spirit of institutionalist theory approaches, governance is introduced by the European Commission as an umbrella “key”, one that needs to ensure the viability of the RRI by creating an institutional environment that is conducive to the responsibilization effort. Then, within RRI theoretical accounts, it is depicted in normative terms – as a necessary means of organizing the research and innovation realm by employing more horizontal formats in initiating the interaction between the concerned social actors. Our focus, however, will be on how the notion of governance, within all its variations, assumes a crucial role of the market in solving what was already referred to as governability crisis, and how these assumptions are introducing a normative contradiction within the suggested solutions for unfolding practical space for the other important “keys” ‒ ethics, science education, gender, participation, open innovation. This could give us some insight about the built-in impediments before the responsibilization process on the level ...