Challenges and barriers. This requirement is often seen by citizens as paramount for the validity and legitimacy of the results produced by engagement. However, it raises particular challenges for recruiting participants for engagement activities (balanced representation). Citizens may refrain from participation because they feel that they lack knowledge on the issues being debated or deliberative skills to participate in the debate. This barrier is particularly intensified in regard to so far underrepresented groups, including ethnic minorities and those that are not in employment, education or training. In regard to current engagement practice, limited resources in recruiting participants may result in the recruitment of ‘easy to reach’ citizens and TSOs, i.e. those that have been traditionally willing to 13 Xxxxx, Xxxxxx, Xxxxx (2016), Societal engagement under the terms of RRI (PROSO Deliverable 2.2); xxxx://xxx.xxxxx- xxxxxxx.xx/xx-xxxxxxx/xxxxxxx/xxxxx_x0.0_xxxxxxxx_xxxxxxxxxx.xxx. 14 See footnote 11. engage (e.g., more educated citizens; established and highly professionalized TSOs). Furthermore, frequent challenges in recruiting citizens become intensified: a lack of personal interest in an issue which can be personal concern or perceived relevance for society, the perception of citizens that engagement will have no impact or resonance in decision-making. Although TSOs are much easier to identify and to invite, engagement processes also face challenges concerning their willingness to participate, particularly when less established stakeholders are sought. Participation requires a high degree of institutionalization and professionalization in the TSO. Smaller TSOs with limited financial resources, personnel or access to knowledge (such as journal subscriptions) do not have the capacities to participate in all potentially relevant R&I processes. Engagement in R&I processes may also counter the strategic interests of critical TSOs, as they fear to be used as a source of legitimization (trust). In this regard a TSO’s engagement with established R&I actors and institution may impact the public trust and reputation of the TSO (strategic interests). When to engage? The ‘right’ timing of public or stakeholder dialogues is crucial for societal engagement under RRI. RRI calls for early societal engagement in order to ensure that societal concerns and values can be integrated in research and innovation processes. When engagement is initiated late in the development of research or inn...
Challenges and barriers. This implies a challenge which is particularly relevant in regard to newly emerging technologies such as synthetic biology, where the framing of issues is only beginning. In this case, engagement events may easily lean towards a pro-technology bias, hyping the technoscience area or towards one-sided critique. Both scenarios diminish the opportunities for balanced representation of stakeholders and perspectives. The framing of an event plays a pivotal role in the willingness of actors to participate. Critical TSOs often refrain from participating in engagement activities that are, from their perspective, too enthusiastic and uncritical towards science, technology and innovation (STI) issues (narrow framing). In this regard, their organizational interests might collide with the interests of the event organizers. Engagement with research or even industrial actors might entail the risk of being used as a source of legitimization and of losing control over the discourse, particularly when the framing of the engagement activity is outside the TSOs’ influence. Moreover, the consensus orientation of engagement might make it difficult for TSOs to communicate their efforts and impacts to their stakeholders (strategic interests). Also public dialogues often take a scientific framing which xxxxx the technoscience area but is insufficient, since the public favours different approaches towards the discussion than experts (framed as an expert issue). What for to engage? RRI wants society to exert influence on R&I. This goes beyond goals such as arousing interest and curiosity for that which is new and emerging in R&I; producing trust by discussing topics early on; improving data sets by including citizens as data providers; or making research policy decisions transparent. ‘Society-friendly’ R&I requires openness to societal values, needs and expectations at various levels: at the level of the political system; at the level of decision-making bodies of funding authorities; and at the level of research and innovation systems. Challenges and barriers One main challenge for societal engagement under RRI is the insufficient linkage between engagement processes and formal decision-making structures, processes and actors, and, as a result, the low responsiveness of R&I actors and institutions to engagement processes. Societal engagement processes are frequently found to be detached from decision-making in science and policy, often resembling laboratory experiments that are used...
Challenges and barriers
