The Dutch Research School of Philosophy (OZSW), Wageningen University and Delft University of Technology are offering the course “Philosophy of Responsible Innovation”, scheduled to take place in January 2019. The course will be taught in English and should be interesting and suitable for many of our readers.

Date(s)
9-11 January 2019, 14-18 January 2019

Location
Week 1: TU Delft, Netherlands
Week 2: Wageningen University, Netherlands

The primary target group for this course is PhD and Masters students, with registration closing on 1 December 2018. The course is free for PhD students and Research Master students who are a member of the 4TU Center for Ethics and Technology and/or OZSW, while all others pay a tuition fee of 250 euros.

About the topic
This course discusses the main philosophical issues in relation to Responsible Innovation, an emerging concept in the EU context which highlights the relevance of social-ethical issues in research and innovation practices. This emerging concept calls for philosophical reflection on the nature, scope and applicability of responsibility and innovation in innovation practices in general, and the way social-ethical issues can be applied and addressed in specific fields like business, healthcare and energy in particular.

Topics that will be covered include the nature of responsibility in responsible innovation, the role of societal values in innovation and value sensitive design, philosophical reflections on the role of knowledge and risk in innovation, constructive technology assessment and governance of responsible innovation, Responsible Innovation in the public sector (healthcare), responsible innovation in the private sector.

Students get to know some of the main positions in relation to philosophical issues in responsible innovation, the main arguments in the relevant debates and insight in the dilemma’s which appear in the practical application of responsible innovation in the public and private sector. Although the focus is on the philosophical and ethical issues raised by responsible innovation, we will also touch upon some more fundamental philosophical issues raised by responsible innovation.

This includes issues such as the folowing:

The nature of responsibility in light of the unpredictability of the future impact of innovations
The philosophical assumptions of the innovation paradigm
The way (responsible) innovations affect experience and praxis
Value incommensurability, value pluralism and the trade-offs between values in responsible innovation

Regular readers of this website or academic RI or RRI literature in general will be familiar with the work of many of the lecturers, the list below featuring many of the leaders in this field of thinking:

Dr. Tsjalling Swierstra, Maastricht University (day 1)
Marianne Boenink, Twente University (day 1)
Vincent Blok, Wageningen University (day 2, 5 and 7)
Dr. ir. Ibo van de Poel, Technical University Delft (day 2, 3 and 7)
Simone van der Burg, Wageningen University (day 4)
Dr. Arie Rip, Emeritus Twente University (day 5)
Dr. Jeroen van den Hoven, Technical University Delft (day 3)
Dr. Phil MacNaghten, Wageningen University (day 4)
Eefje Cuppen, Technical University Delft (day 6)
Peter-Paul Verbeek, Twente University (day 6)

The published program is as follows:

Week 1 (Delft)
Day 1 (9 January 2019): Introduction to Responsible Research and Innovation (Swierstra & Boenink)
Day 2 (10 January 2019): Conceptions of Responsibility in Relation to RRI (vd Poel & Blok)
Day 3 (11 January 2019): Value Sensitive Design (vd Hoven & vd Poel)

Week 2 (Wageningen)
Day 4 (14 January 2019): AIRR Framework and RRI in Health Care (MacNaghten & vd Burg)
Day 5 (15 January 2019): Constructive Technology Assessment and RRI in industry (Rip & Blok)
Day 6 (16 January 2019): Postphenomenological analysis of RRI & Stakeholder Engagement (Verbeek & Cuppen)
Day 7 (18 January 2019): Final Presentatioins (Blok & vd Poel)

Registration is possible through the course website.

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