EGENIS seminar series: "Responsible Futures:Industrial Biotechnology and the Challenge of Responsible Innovation", Dr Achim Rosemann (University of Exeter)

Many IB innovations use controversial technologies, like synthetic biology, gene editing and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). These technologies have sparked public opposition which can stifle the development of the IB sector. For these reasons governments, industry bodies and scientists widely agree, it is important to develop industrial biotechnology responsibly.

The seminar is based on an ongoing collaboration with Susan Molyneux-Hodgson and Sally Atkinson. It explores what the adoption of responsible innovation (RI) ideas in the IB sector means in practice. Based on qualitative research and interdisciplinary collaboration with researchers and staff from UK IB companies, we ask: How can industrial biotech – as part of the larger realm of a bio-based economy – progress in ways that correspond to societal and environmental needs, and who gets a say on how these needs are framed? How are ideas of responsibility articulated in IB corporations, and implemented in actual innovation processes? In which ways does RI adoption transform innovation practices, and how do these changes influence what corporations (can) do and how they interact with society, consumers and the environment? The seminar will explore various strategies to answer these questions in the context of a book that will be written over the course of the next months. It will be structured as an interactive workshop in which participants will be invited to actively engage with some of the presented materials and to contribute critical reflection and relevant ideas.