 From responsibility to risk: ethics in the Bermuda Triangle of EU research and innovation policyBlagovesta I Nikolova Science and Public Policy, 2024, vol. 51, issue 2, 207-217 Abstract: This paper aims to trace how the meaning of ethics in the research and innovation (R&I) sector is discursively and procedurally revised within two consecutive modes of legitimizing public policies in the European Union (EU), namely, good governance and better regulation. The text draws insight from Ernesto Laclau’s work on discursivity, contingency, and hegemony and Chantal Mouffe’s critique of consensual political theories. It shows that with the policy transition from responsible innovation to breakthrough and disruptive innovation, the possibilities to employ ethics in interrogating the ambiguous nature of science and technology advancement become very limited. Ethics is currently construed as a means for unclogging the innovation process and embracing the collective production of risks. The paper demonstrates that the recent emptying of ethics within EU R&I is an expected effect of hegemonization practices and discursive configurations promoting and stabilizing the science–market alliance in science and policy relations. Keywords: EU governance; risk; ethics (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:scippl:v:51:y:2024:i:2:p:207-217. Access Statistics for this article Science and Public Policy is currently edited by Nicoletta Corrocher, Jeong-Dong Lee, Mireille Matt and Nicholas Vonortas More articles in Science and Public Policy from Oxford University Press |
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