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Table 2 Key indicators of RRI dimensions, summarized from Stilgoe et al. (2013)

From: Constructing future scenarios as a tool to foster responsible research and innovation among future synthetic biologists

Dimension

Key indicators

Anticipation

Showing the capacity to ask “what if”-questions. (What is likely? What is plausible?)

Showing the capacity to think systemically

Acknowledging the value of system thinking

Explicitly recognizing complexities and co-evolution

Inclusion

Recognizing and acknowledging engagement beyond key stakeholders

Diversifying the inputs to and delivery of governance

Opening up framings of issues

Recognizing engagement as a learning process

Opening up discussion on future social worlds

Reflexivity

Being able to hold a mirror up to one’s own activities, commitments, and assumptions

Being aware of the limits of (technical) knowledge

Being mindful that a particular framing of an issue may not be universally held

Scrutinizing value systems and theories that shape science and innovation

Opening up alternatives

Rethinking prevailing conceptions about the moral division of labour within science and innovation

Recognizing wider moral responsibilities

Responsiveness

Acknowledging the need or possibility to change shape or direction in response to stakeholder and public values and changing circumstances

Recognizing the limitations of knowledge and power

Being able to situate the project in the wider political and economic landscape

Showing the capacity to scrutinize science system elements and governance

mechanisms (e.g. with regard to intellectual property regimes, and funding)

Incorporating particular ethical values in their design