Talk by Jack Stilgoe [University College of London, UK] at the Joint Research Centre as part of the STS “Contro Corrente” series of seminars.
4 December 2015
with discussant:
Sjoerd Hardeman, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis in The Hague, NL
In science policy, excellence is everywhere. Following the Research Excellence Framework, the UK’s Universities are all rushing to take credit for their ‘excellence’. The UK Government’s recent science and innovation strategy talks about “the importance of achieving excellence”. Who’d be against that? If quality is good then surely excellence is better? In November 2014, the ‘Rome declaration’ was published as part of Italy’s presidency of the European Union. The statement calls for Europe to embrace ‘responsible research and innovation’, in the service of big social problems of global health, environmental sustainability, and securing food, energy and water supplies. Few would disagree with the principle of responsible research and innovation. But it remains unclear what it would mean in practice. Taking RRI seriously means thinking about its tensions with the way in which we talk about scientific ‘excellence’. If we are to nurture genuinely responsible research and innovation, I argue that ‘excellence’ needs a radical overhaul.
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