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concern is the combination of artificial intelligence (AI), big data analytics and robotics
which promises imminent disruptive changes. One particular application area in this field
is the area of care robotics.
At present much research is undertaken to find ways of implementing and realising
the principles of RRI in research and innovation practices. RRI raises some fundamental
questions of research governance, such as the intractable problem of how the future can
be forecast with sufficient accuracy to allow for meaningful interventions in the present. It
also raises numerous practical questions concerning the integration of RRI thoughts into
current research and innovation ecosystems. In addition RRI will have to be applied in a
way that is sensitive to the local environment and research field, if it is to be successful.
This paper asks the question how RRI can be implemented in research and innovation
activities concerning care robots. More specifically, it will investigate a recent develop-
ment in the area of standardisation, the BS 8611 “Robots and robotic devices: Guide
to the ethical design and application of robots and robotic systems” (BSI 2016). The
question discussed in this paper is whether and to what degree this new standard can be
understood as a way of implementing RRI in care robotics.
In order to answer this question I will first introduce RRI in more detail and discuss
the limitations of the current RRI discourse. Following this I will introduce the charac-
teristics and ethical concerns raised by care robots. The subsequent section will outline
the BS 8611 standard. Having thus provided the full background, I will discuss how
BS 8611 can be applied to care robots and review whether this can be seen as an imple-
mentation of RRI. The paper concludes with recommendations for both theory and prac-
tice that should help promote RRI in the field of care robots.
10.2 Responsible Research and Innovation
RRI has gained prominence since approximately 2010 as a key term that is used to describe
open and participative approaches to research and innovation governance. Von Schomberg’s
(2011, p. 9) widely cited definition displays many of RRI’s key characteristics:
Responsible Research and Innovation is a transparent, interactive process by which societal
actors and innovators become mutually responsive to each other with a view on the ( ethical)
acceptability, sustainability and societal desirability of the innovation process and its marke-
table products (in order to allow a proper embedding of scientific and technological advan-
ces in our society).
This chapter does not offer the space for a comprehensive review of the quickly growing
discourse on RRI. Suffice it to say that it is now the subject of edited books (Hankins
2012; Owen et al. 2013), conferences (Bogner et al. 2015; Hoven et al. 2014) and there
is a dedicated journal, the journal of Responsible Innovation.
One of the reasons why RRI has been a highly successful term is that it has been adop-
ted by research funders in attempts to steer research in certain directions. This started out
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