Innovation and Democratization in the European Union’s “Responsible” STI Policy

Competing Principles

Abstract

The European Union’s science, technology, and innovation (STI) policy is subject to a series of unresolved tensions regarding how responsibility is conceived and governed. Drawing on an analysis of key strategic documents, this article identifies two competing approaches to responsibility. The first, categorised as the “principle of innovation”, emphasises the promotion of strategic autonomy, competitiveness, and the accelerated deployment of technologies. The second, referred to here as the “principle of democratisation” and associated with the more transformative interpretations of frameworks such as Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) or Open Science (OS), seeks to foster more inclusive and deliberative STI processes. The article highlights four key features of the relationship between these two principles: i) their tense coexistence is rooted in a fundamental ideological divergence; ii) both share a critique of the dominant risk-based governance framework, albeit from opposing motivations and normative commitments; iii) the “principle of innovation” consistently prevails over the “principle of democratisation”; and iv) the institutional assumption that inherently conflicting goals (e.g. economic growth and sustainability) can coexist harmoniously reinforces the “principle of innovation” at the expense of the “principle of democratisation”. It is argued that a democratic governance of STI requires acknowledging and directly confronting these tensions.