Responsible innovation for disruptive science and technology: The role of public trust and social expectations

As the world increasingly faces intersecting and complex environmental, social, and economic challenges, there are rising demands on emerging science and technology to produce innovative and potentially disruptive solutions. However, these solutions may also introduce different problems, uncertainties, and risks. Responsible innovation (RI) offers a way to identify and mitigate the social and ethical risks associated with new science and technology developments while delivering socially desirable and responsible outcomes. But how does the public view RI? In this paper, we argue that those undertaking disruptive science and technology research need a better understanding of the drivers of public trust in the research and innovation sector, and broader societal expectations of what constitutes socially responsible outcomes arising from their work. Few studies have explored if and how RI, trust, and social expectations are interrelated in the eyes of the public. This research investigates public perceptions of RI relevant to the development of novel and potentially disruptive science and technology, and their relationships with two key social outcomes: (1) public trust in the research and innovation sector; and (2) public expectations that innovative and potentially disruptive research can deliver socially responsible outcomes. Through surveying 4080 Australians, this research identifies how these four elements of RI – (i) practices of scientists, (ii) institutional compliance with research ethics, (iii) risk management effectiveness, and (iv) governance arrangements – are associated with public trust and expectations of socially responsible outcomes. Our best fitting path model showed that these elements of RI explain a large proportion of variability in trust in scientists and research institutions undertaking disruptive science, and most of the variability in public expectations that such research can deliver socially responsible outcomes. Of the four elements of RI, practices of scientists are most important for explaining trust in the research and innovation sector, and risk management effectiveness is most important for expectations of socially responsible outcomes from disruptive science and technology.