“I am Primarily Paid for Publishing…”

The Narrative Framing of Societal Responsibilities in Academic Life Science Research

Datos Bibliográficos

ID21688366
AutoresLisa Sigl (0000-0001-9255-8420, University of Vienna, autor de correspondencia), U Felt (0000-0001-7506-4234, University of Vienna), Maximilian Fochler (0000-0002-8601-3210, University of Vienna)
Año2020
Volumen26
Número3
Páginas1569-1593
Fecha de publicación2020-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaScience and Engineering Ethics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1353-3452 • E-ISSN: 1471-5546
EditorialSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/s11948-020-00191-8
PMID32048141
OpenAlexW3006345430
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas15
Referencias citadas26

Building on group discussions and interviews with life science researchers in Austria, this paper analyses the narratives that researchers use in describing what they feel responsible for, with a particular focus on how they perceive the societal responsibilities of their research. Our analysis shows that the core narratives used by the life scientists participating in this study continue to be informed by the linear model of innovation. This makes it challenging for more complex innovation models [such as responsible research and innovation (RRI)] to gain ground in how researchers make sense of and conduct their research. Furthermore, the paper shows that the life scientists were not easily able to imagine specific practices that would address broader societal concerns and thus found it hard to integrate the latter into their core responsibilities. Linked to this, researchers saw institutional reward structures (e.g. evaluations, contractual commitments) as strongly focused on scientific excellence (“I am primarily paid for publishing...”). Thus, they saw reward structures as competing with—rather than incentivising—broader notions of societal responsibility. This narrative framing of societal responsibilities is indicative of a structural marginalisation of responsibility practices and explains the claim, made by many researchers in our sample, that they cannot afford to spend time on such practices. The paper thus concludes that the core ideas of RRI stand in tension with predominant narrative and institutional infrastructures that researchers draw on to attribute meaning to their research practices. This suggests that scientific institutions (like universities, professional communities or funding institutions) still have a core role to play in providing new and context-specific narratives as well as new forms of valuing responsibility practices

Engineering ethics · Epistemology · Excellence · Narrative · Philosophy of science · Political science · Public relations · Publishing · Responsible Research and Innovation · Sociology · Biomedical Ethics and Regulation · Education, Healthcare and Sociology Research · Ethics in Clinical Research · Law