PRESS: Science must be responsible

Responsibility 2.0

Responsibility in science is no longer associated with the individual scientist’s performance. Today, science must be part of a responsible process all the way from the laboratory to the market. The ramifications hereof are discussed by Center for Synbio’s Maya Horst and Birger Lindberg Møller in today’s edition of newspaper Information

The article can be found in the written edition and in Danish only: Information.dk

From individual to structural responsibility
In the article, Maya Horst points out that the race to be first with breakthrough knowledge will no longer be won by the novelty itself, but only by socially responsible knowledge accepted by citizens.

Birger Lindberg Møller agrees, saying: “it doesn’t help to have a solution to a problem, if people do not want to use that solution.”

The structural approach to responsibility has already been adopted by funding agencies in Denmark such as The Innovation Foundation and in European Horizon2020 program, scientists will be asked to respond to aspects of ‘responsible science and innovation’ (RRI) in their applications.

However, as Birger Lindberg Møller points out in the article, successful and large-scale integration of Responsible Research and Innovation would benefit from being integrated more fully in the university management incentives structures.