From ethics of restriction to ethics of construction: ELSA research in Norway

Current trends in ELSA policies are marked by keywords like collaboration, integration and Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). This article analyzes how these trends have manifested themselves in Norway with the aim to find ways to understand and respond adequately to these policy development...

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Main Authors: Rune Nydal, Anne Ingeborg Myhr, Bjørn Kåre Myskja
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nordic Journal of Science and Technology Studies 2016-12-01
Series:Nordic Journal of Science and Technology Studies
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.ntnu.no/ojs/index.php/njsts/article/view/2155
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author Rune Nydal
Anne Ingeborg Myhr
Bjørn Kåre Myskja
author_facet Rune Nydal
Anne Ingeborg Myhr
Bjørn Kåre Myskja
author_sort Rune Nydal
collection DOAJ
description Current trends in ELSA policies are marked by keywords like collaboration, integration and Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). This article analyzes how these trends have manifested themselves in Norway with the aim to find ways to understand and respond adequately to these policy developments. Recent criticisms of ELSA strategies accompanied by arguments for a turn towards ‘post-ELSI’ research approaches hold that ELSA research was designed to maintain a sharp unproductive normative division of labor between natural scientists on the one hand and ELSA researchers on the other hand. ELSA strategies consequently have to be overcome and restructured towards collaboration, integration and RRI. Our account of the Norwegian ELSA history does not support this simple analysis of the ‘modernist’ character of early ELSA strategies. We present and analyze a shift as it took place in two successive ELSA programs in the Research Council of Norway, and argue that ELSA policies that rest only on post-ELSI analyses, risk reinventing the wheel of collaboration. By insisting on the creation of novel designing strategies, one disregards important lessons from the early phases of ELSA research, and even more importantly, fails to recognize that an ethics of construction implies different challenges for different groups of ELSA researchers.
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spelling doaj.art-d9a251241fc0428080f228b7665ee9c92023-09-02T23:35:12ZengNordic Journal of Science and Technology StudiesNordic Journal of Science and Technology Studies1894-46472016-12-013110.5324/njsts.v3i1.2155From ethics of restriction to ethics of construction: ELSA research in NorwayRune NydalAnne Ingeborg MyhrBjørn Kåre MyskjaCurrent trends in ELSA policies are marked by keywords like collaboration, integration and Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). This article analyzes how these trends have manifested themselves in Norway with the aim to find ways to understand and respond adequately to these policy developments. Recent criticisms of ELSA strategies accompanied by arguments for a turn towards ‘post-ELSI’ research approaches hold that ELSA research was designed to maintain a sharp unproductive normative division of labor between natural scientists on the one hand and ELSA researchers on the other hand. ELSA strategies consequently have to be overcome and restructured towards collaboration, integration and RRI. Our account of the Norwegian ELSA history does not support this simple analysis of the ‘modernist’ character of early ELSA strategies. We present and analyze a shift as it took place in two successive ELSA programs in the Research Council of Norway, and argue that ELSA policies that rest only on post-ELSI analyses, risk reinventing the wheel of collaboration. By insisting on the creation of novel designing strategies, one disregards important lessons from the early phases of ELSA research, and even more importantly, fails to recognize that an ethics of construction implies different challenges for different groups of ELSA researchers.https://www.ntnu.no/ojs/index.php/njsts/article/view/2155ELSARRIintegrated researchbioethicsnanoethics
spellingShingle Rune Nydal
Anne Ingeborg Myhr
Bjørn Kåre Myskja
From ethics of restriction to ethics of construction: ELSA research in Norway
Nordic Journal of Science and Technology Studies
ELSA
RRI
integrated research
bioethics
nanoethics
title From ethics of restriction to ethics of construction: ELSA research in Norway
title_full From ethics of restriction to ethics of construction: ELSA research in Norway
title_fullStr From ethics of restriction to ethics of construction: ELSA research in Norway
title_full_unstemmed From ethics of restriction to ethics of construction: ELSA research in Norway
title_short From ethics of restriction to ethics of construction: ELSA research in Norway
title_sort from ethics of restriction to ethics of construction elsa research in norway
topic ELSA
RRI
integrated research
bioethics
nanoethics
url https://www.ntnu.no/ojs/index.php/njsts/article/view/2155
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