Print Email Facebook Twitter Just a Cog in the Machine? The Individual Responsibility of Researchers in Nanotechnology is a Duty to Collectivize Title Just a Cog in the Machine? The Individual Responsibility of Researchers in Nanotechnology is a Duty to Collectivize Author Spruit, S.L. Hoople, G.D. Rolfe, D.A. Faculty Technology, Policy and Management Department Values Technology and Innovation Date 2015-11-04 Abstract Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) provides a framework for judging the ethical qualities of innovation processes, however guidance for researchers on how to implement such practices is limited. Exploring RRI in the context of nanotechnology, this paper examines how the dispersed and interdisciplinary nature of the nanotechnology field somewhat hampers the abilities of individual researchers to control the innovation process. The ad-hoc nature of the field of nanotechnology, with its fluid boundaries and elusive membership, has thus far failed to establish a strong collective agent, such as a professional organization, through which researchers could collectively steer technological development in light of social and environmental needs. In this case, individual researchers cannot innovate responsibly purely by themselves, but there is also no structural framework to ensure that responsible development of nanotechnologies takes place. We argue that, in such a case, individual researchers have a duty to collectivize. In short, researchers in situations where it is challenging for individual agents to achieve the goals of RRI are compelled to develop organizations to facilitate RRI. In this paper we establish and discuss the criteria under which individual researchers have this duty to collectivize. Subject responsible research and innovationcollectivization dutyinterdisciplinarynanotechnologyemerging technologiescollective responsibility To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:31ae686b-32a6-4daf-9be2-6ef6b467ec65 Publisher Springer ISSN 1353-3452 Source https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-015-9718-1 Source Science and Engineering Ethics, 2015 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type journal article Rights © 2015 The Author(s)This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Files PDF Spruit_2015.pdf 593.91 KB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:31ae686b-32a6-4daf-9be2-6ef6b467ec65/datastream/OBJ/view