Specific Challenges for Responsible Research and Innovation. RRI in Industrial Contexts and Human Brain Simulation

Discussions of responsible research and innovation (RRI) tend to focus on publicly funded research projects that take place in clearly described and predictable project settings. This is understandable as publicly funded activities should safeguard and promote the public interest. It can be problematic, however, if this leads to a neglect of research and innovation activities that take place outside of this clearly circumscribed field. This paper describes current RRI activities in two projects which go beyond it. It first outlines RRI in the Human Brain Project, which is a very large and multidisciplinary project where classical project governance structures may not be counted on to deliver RRI. The second project looks into the question of RRI in industry, where incentives and regulatory frameworks are different from those in publicly funded research. Drawing from these two sets of background, the paper asks how such non-standard research and innovation can be accommodated in RRI.