[FULL]: Great S&T (innovation) policies UNLEASH HUMAN AGENCY - WHAT, HOW & WHY | René von Schomberg

Which signals this distrust in government.  This is just part of the  diagnosis not the complete diagnosis but the part of this distrust is a result of feeling of powerlessness over their own situation and so this brings me back to my central point of autonomy so if people feel they are master of the changes in their environment then this distrust against authorities would also diminish Hi and welcome back today we have Dr. René von   Schomberg again so welcome back to the program how have you been? Oh I’m fine so as you know  I’m currently in Aachen as a  Senior Research Fellow so I have a lot of freedom to  do my own research so I feel  very luxurious and privileged positioned at the moment liberated from  the pressures of my work at the  European Commission in the past That's right because last time  we spoke you were still at  the European Commission and you were there  for such a long time doing  really great work driving the whole responsible innovation movement  across Europe. If you look  back looking towards the future as well what's the most critical  trend in the field of policy? I see it a little bit in two polls which contradict each  other things can go either way I  said in my last interview with you I hope that citizens can become  actor of change rather than  only be subject to change when it comes to innovation   now in order to achieve that to get to such let's say utopian vision almost one needs changes in society which leads to more democratization of course and this has always been part of responsible research  and innovation in itself but it  has broader scope it touches upon all aspects of our living for  example with the event of the  internet 20 years ago that people can become more easily an author  or a writer but you have the  same development with other technologies we can think in the future that our houses   produce actually more energy than we need it can feed our cars or whatever we can  become independent of energy  suppliers with 3D printing another example we all now are only consumers  most of the time but we can  become producers with this new technology and now the question is whether  our societies allow this  further autonomy of the people to do or to facilitate these things  or we go the other way that we  still remain dependent on either the state or big companies or and  be subject to change I don't  know how this will play out if you would think in a progressive way  then it will go in utopian  direction I just mentioned that we all become actors of change rather  than that we are subject to  these things and that we can help to define the characteristics of  the technologies we would like  to have because as you know our responsible research and  innovation is all about social  desirable innovations but very key from this is something  let's say which is connected  almost to human rights which increases our autonomy  as individuals now of course  with artificial intelligence we have again a technology which touches upon  this autonomy directly this  is something one needs to explore further from this perspective I think if you know retrospectively look back to what has happened the last 50 years and you can  maintain this positive view You just said there are two  different ways we can go I’m  wondering what other core  capacities we need to build in order for us to give individuals   more agency to shape technology innovation this could be capacity with the industry within  companies and or perhaps just  individual citizens? I personally think it has to go over organizations  of course individuals can  engage with various activities you know even in aspects such as citizen  science which can also underpin  responsible research and innovation or other forms of citizens engagement   we need organizations to allow for these changes and probably new organizations  and new governing bodies in  which citizens are represented in one way or another actors which are  at the currently do not have  a sufficient role in this process should be enabled to have this role   so it’s very often a situation in which people do want to have responsibility  over things we just simply  cannot and that means that this enabling of responsibility is a task for  public authorities it's part of  a political vision to allow this so the capacity has to go to  organizations this is one of  the deficits at the moment which can steer or direct  innovations towards social  desirable lens and this can be sector specific maybe either in energy  or in mobility but we need  in these sectors interactions with public authorities to allow this to happen and  enable people to take  responsibility in this regard we have a lot of activities in which industry engages itself with citizens or research projects this is of course  in itself also all fine and I  even can should be encouraged but probably in the end this is not sufficient we need third-party organizations which can mediate between a society  and big organizations or big  industries it has also to do a little bit with the issue of trust and you  see also actually very much  currently in our societies a distrust against bigger organizations but also  against the state even if it's  not justified of course one can say well people simply have to  trust their governments but you  can also think of okay if the governments and industry allow third-party  organizations to control or  verify and help what they are doing then this would counteract  this element of distrust Is the core erosion of trust because of the say for example   with the big tech companies or are there other reasons why trust is eroding? Well this is a good question  I would not have a full  explanation of this myself because there are sometimes very extreme things  you know like we had in some  countries in Europe for example protests against 5G internet because  I think it creates viruses or  things like that one can speculate where this all comes from now  these are relatively I would  say minor things but it's a symptom of a broader element which  signals this distrust in  government this is just part of the diagnosis not the complete diagnosis but  the part of this distrust is  a result of feeling of powerlessness over their own situation and  so this brings me back to my  central point of autonomy so if people feel they are  master of the changes in their  environment then this distrust against authorities  would also diminish I’m a  proponent of further European integration on the other hand people  thinking okay these supranational  organizations are far from my home and they don't feel that  they would align with them  anymore because they think it further increases their  problem of powerlessness over  their changes I think it's something which we have  to take very serious as public  authorities so this is also I think a reason why European Commission  also now in the field of  research tries to involve citizens in their research agendas more  directly the question of course  whether this will be sufficient and how this will be done but it  is an element which we have to  take serious If say you have been given an  unlimited amount of funding  what specific things would you invest in as a priority and what would you not invest in? I would certainly invest in innovation missions which are oriented around our  big societal challenges or  global challenges you know be it on climate change or food  security the issue here is to make  them relevant for reaching individuals and cities and it is interesting  to see if you take climate  change for example there's a lot of research going on that but it  always has to do with global  models and we argue about whether two degrees Celsius rises is too  much or too little or something  like that but it's all related to global models but we don't relate it  to what does this change of  two degrees means for my city for example what does this mean for my  director environment and then if  you would do take this approach then you get surprising results  actually and also different  results and different challenges for those cities and  it's then it's not all equal  around the world and I think this is where we  have to invest in I think this  is also one of the successes I would say from  responsible research and  innovation in the last 10 years that European Commission has embarked on such  missions in theory they run  around let's say the slogan of co-creation and  co-design and citizen involvement  so it's actually a new instrument I think it's unfortunately  sometimes presented in very  old-fashioned and in wrong ways like bringing a man on the moon or  something like this which is a  technical question challenge and it's not the  type of challenge we are facing  now we face actually our problems are social this  is what is also new they are  not technological central they are human central of course we will need  to exploit technologies but  it's not about using them solely with the perspective of  economic benefits for example  I think this is an important shift So is the approach to get everyone   from the get-go involved in participating in shaping innovation or are there groups  that can help to propel and  educate the greater mass of people? Well you are right I mean  education also called plays it  plays a central role in the last few years some universities  have taken the initiative to change their educational programs away   from disciplines to challenge what they call “challenge oriented  learning” and so that let's say  study electrotechnics or some technical study that  they that really study these  things in the context of some societal challenges where they also  need insights from other  scientific disciplines there are initiatives at least at the university  education levels to change the  way we actually motivate students to work in this challenge-oriented  way it is very important  that this happens because it enables another mindset but of  course you need also the new  infrastructure for innovation we need new government bodies who  can help us to direct the  innovations in the directions we want and because now we have only  government bodies who actually  address a risk we have a lot of a body who you know scientific   committees which address the risk of technology and safety issues or very important issues  but we need something more  on top of that broader citizens can come in but this may  actually be become very sector  dependent for example around agriculture with farmers and other consumer  organizations and in the  field of medicine for example with patient organizations and so  on some sectors are dominated  by very few multinationals like in the  agro tech business five or six  multinationals operating worldwide actually shaping our global   markets where this contrasts are sharply with what is desirable at regional levels I don't  see at the moment actually  developments which counter balance these things we are still a little  bit dependent on the goodwill  of those companies in certain cases like what we have recently seen with  the pharmaceutical industry  which finally agreed among each other to facilitate certain medicines  for free or easy access in  poorer countries the desires individual or accidental  events this does not help us to  shape our reshape our future in a more structural way everyone  needs to work on more let's say  a broader topic around the public governance of our economy Which industries do you think are more ready for responsible innovation  and which are which industries  may need a little bit more help? Yeah that's a that's a good  point what I just said sound a  little bit negative in a sense I mean you know not  so hopeful but on the other  hand you can look also to what we see happening in the  industries also in the big  industries let's imagine you have a product and you market it  worldwide and twenty percent of  the population would buy a product that that would be an enormous  success I think probably if five  percent would buy it you already have an enormous success you would  have an enormous business   now even for these big companies who have a big market share even  they now realize that they  cannot be only happy with this fact they also have to worry about  those people who don't buy  their products so I think there is a sense of responsibility  which goes beyond this let's  say this market success for example the Dutch multinational in  chemical industry DSM has a sort  of principle that besides of profit they have to comply with  some self-made criteria you  know around the ecology and also around the people the human  resources which are affected by  it and otherwise they would not use these it would not produce  these products one of course can  be sceptical about these things but I do think it's much more  than just an selling exercise  or an image exercise it is an attempt to take responsibility for something  which is not immediately  in the scope of what you normally would call a business operation  the problem here is that if  institutions who take up third parties need to come in here to have  to reinforce these things  otherwise it can be a tool of a CEO who is in charge for five years and  when the person is gone then  the program is gone this happens also so you need something structural  here and you see it also in  philanthropic organizations which are let's  take the example of the Bill  Gates Fundation they do fantastic work but one has also to realize  what does it actually mean that  we are dependent on them there's a lacuna somewhere which  needs to be filled and then  the question is can we leave it up to philanthropic and then  my answer would be no I mean  it's nice that these people do it but we need a new infrastructure  here that becomes evident Then just say a company is genuinely want to do  responsible innovation what are the  three questions that these companies can ask themselves to start  driving responsible innovation? The most basic element what I said from social desirable innovations   is of course will it enhance people's autonomy and so on does it contribute  to the life of individuals one  can answer this question by saying well if people buy it  on the market and apparently  does but you can also think in a more longer term issue  you know whether this will  contribute to where we want to head towards industry would need to engage  in citizens to find out what  type of products they would actually prefer there has to be also  a sort of baseline now or a  direction where we want to go and I think this is not up  to individual citizens or  citizens organizations only I mean citizens organizations can also want  very bad things I mean in  America you have the National Rifle Association you want people to have more  weapons I mean people can want  all kinds of things so you need a public authority which gives a direction  this is one of the things  I find positive in Europe at the beginning of new governance period of the European Commission with the Green Deal for a first time again a sort of vision you  know which direction we have to  go and what are our deadlines so to speak if we want to get there  in the meantime this has been  unfortunately overshadowed by the war in Ukraine and restraints  by individual countries or  making abuse of it by propagating nuclear power for example so  you get these things now back  on the agenda as well but the initial idea was good and I hope it will also survive the current crisis I’m not one who only want to say is industry was the blame of for instance  we have also allowed industry  to, in the last 20 years to have too much power in  these things public authorities  has to regain their role in this area and not only in saying what is what allowed but also in what we do want to have, give directions to things That leads to the question of:   technology is changing so fast traditionally policy somewhat lagged after the  technology has been introduced in  society I would imagine that as we go forward and as  technologies begin to change even  faster the gap might widen how do we address the gap can we close that gap? This is the really structural problem I think I used the example in my book on new technologies  in agriculture which is called  precision technology so this is we can let's say facilitate our  agriculture with the use of drones  and sensors and we can measure our acres with what they need in terms  of pesticides and we can  organize this in a way that big companies actually will run farms in a  remote way I mean the future  could be that there are no farmers on the farmland anymore that it’s  all done by automatic tractors  and everything is automated the central point here is that these  technologies can be made in such a  way that they serve are centrally organized by big companies or  the same type of technologies  are used by farmers who collaborate with each other sort of cooperative   farming or who share these technologies and so you can make these  technologies fit for very huge  farms who reduce commodities but you can also you make these  technologies fit for smaller  farmers who produce a more diversity of products although  the technology in itself is  the same the direction what will take place or possibly maybe both  things will happen actually the  shaping of these technologies are dependent on the input so that  means in this case farmers  has to become active and if I come back to my autonomy point again so  I think the suicide rate on  the farmers is the highest than in any other sector because  they see that the pleasure of  doing farming disappears in this mass production of commodities   and using animals in extreme forms of production machines so to speak so this delineates farmers from  their world, their pleasure  in their work but if they want to regain it they have to become active  and say okay I collaborate  with my neighbours and I don't see him not only as a competitor but  as somebody who works it in the  same way like me and this can also be a driver of change it's a little  bit boring to say that but  public authorities have to take a lead there and I have to say okay  let's support this direction or  not for example in this case it means whether data which are collected  on farmers lands is only  owned by big companies or are owned by the farmers these are directions  which public authorities  needs to define or in terms of new codes of practices for example   so the shaping of these technologies are really dependent on power relations but also on  the initiatives of individuals  in those sectors if you see autonomy of individuals and as important  of course it presupposes  that these individuals become active and protest or try to push  for their ways to for better  solutions so one has to see also again how this will play out one has to  do has to become active at the  right point of time because once these technologies are there  on a massive scale then it's  very difficult to undo we have now everybody has one or two  cars or something and in the  beginning cars were fantastic now we see there is a problem with them but we  cannot get rid of it in this  way and this is also why we even don't change our way of mobility in  a fundamental sense we keep on  the same track and this is with all technology is the  case this example what I just  gave about precision technology it's about right now the time  to become active this is of  course for responsible innovation and a challenge What do you think about capabilities   of policymakers are there areas that you think require a boosting capabilities  to help enable them to adapt  with and stay ahead of technology? one can see policymakers who  are always too late to respond  to things or they are only reactive you can also  think of policy that becoming  more proactive so this is why I’m a very proponent of foresight and which   is also a cornerstone and supporting responsible innovation and it's especially again the  public authorities who have to  facilitate this foresight we do that to some extent so and  foresight is very important in  developing scenarios you know what type of futures are possible and what  type of futures do we want  ideally these foresight exercises are also participative in nature  you include citizens in these  exercises or stakeholders you use that also as a policy tool this is one  of the things we need to do  more in policy it's happening of course I don't know how it is in  Australia but I know that in quite  a few governments foresight is seen as an important tool but you can also use this   foresight again to broaden it with citizen  participation and what type of  futures do they want and then it allows you also to earlier  intervening where it's essential  because when certain technology are entrenched it is very  difficult to change so I think  there is a task to further institutionalize foresight in policy processes  it's actually interesting that  we especially have it when there is some kind of  crisis coming on and since the  last 10 years we only had crisis so we have a lot of foresight I’m going to change gear a little bit okay and this is a more of a personal journey question What is a lesson that has  taken you years to learn? So I was actually thinking  about an issue which I have been which I dealt with which I  also wrote later on that is on  the Precautionary Principle and actually something which  brought me to the European  Commission more than 20 years ago I was a member of a negotiating team  of the European Commission on  the biosafety protocol which is a protocol under the   biological biodiversity convention of the United Nations so this is around 1999 2000 around 140 countries participated in the negotiation to have such a biosafety protocol which would address the issue  on how to trade genetically  modified organisms in that context the Precautionary Principle  is of importance we had it in  European Union formally since 1992 and the Precautionary Principle  would actually lower the  threshold for public authorities to act so that they cannot say we don't  have scientific certainty on  this issue so we don't do anything the issue would be other way  around if there is scientific  uncertainty and the risk can be considerable then there is a  sort of urgency to act when we  entered these negotiations you had a certain front lines you  know on one side you had the  European Union and on the other side you had the Anglo-Saxon countries Canada,  the US, Australia and then  you had a group of countries led among others by India   so when I entered this negotiate when I had to go in with defending the Precautionary Principle bring  it in let's say in the context  of the biosafety protocol a chairman of a negotiating committee I said that I was using inflammatory language and we should ban the words from this negotiating team  I was not allowed to use it  anymore so my first initial reaction was that you know we let not  others determine our vocabulary  but then later I thought maybe and this is actually the lesson maybe   it's actually a good idea not to use this word but in the negotiation to introduce  all kinds of elements which  are relevant for the Precautionary Principle and which would bring it in  without naming actually it as a  principle itself so issues for example that risk  assessments are never completed  you have to do them over and over again there is no expiry  date to it you have to address  scientific uncertainties you have to monitor at first effects   etc now in the end all these elements which are relevant for the Precautionary Principle  and triggered them off were  actually negotiated into the biosafety protocol and it was a very  heated discussion a lot of  conflicts around countries but in the end when the protocol was concluded  it was amusing to see that at  different side of the oceans there was a different assessment of what  was negotiated so in the  European Union they were very happy with the result they say yeah the  Precautionary Principle has been  incorporated in the biosafety protocol whereas at the other side of  the ocean is that no this was  not the case now in fact the word was not used but you see the interpretation frame was there but it served the purpose so the learning process  there was actually to be  successful in these negotiations you sometimes need to change gear  and this is something which  I’ve of course learned and which you don't experience  let's say as an academic this is  something which is typical of a learning experience as a negotiator in this realm Is that a lesson of not so much worried about particular phrases and definitions  but actually focusing on  the actual work involved in driving a particular change? Well yeah well exactly if  you would have entered the  negotiations with insisting okay we need to have an  article on the Precautionary  Principle and let's define it together we would never have got there but by  not referring to it anymore and  focusing on some elements from which you know they are relevant  and to be sure that these  elements are in the protocol you get further and this is also what actually happened I think we can learn a lot  about that when it comes to responsible innovation, responsible   research and innovation etc. Absolutely have the same the  same issues on another level I’m going to ask you my  closing question which is your  vision for the future the question is:   envision 2050 what would you hope it to look like feel like and sound like? Well this is of course where  we started off with I mean my  vision was that people are authors change so that they  can help to give directions to  innovations and maybe even that we live in a society where  people are more cooperative that  we don't only compete with each other but we cooperate  with each other and work  together on common solutions so that we have an enhancement   of autonomy of individuals on the one the hand which is essential here but also that we have a collective society global citizens cooperating on issues of common concern Thank you so much again I’m  going to link our previous  interview with this interview so those people who want to listen a  bit more about your work and  find out who you are they can so thank you so much and I hope to see you soon Thank you Xiao Han, it was a pleasure

2022-10-13 00:36

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