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Responsible innovation and sustainability: interventions in education and training of scientists and engineers

Description

Three dilemmas plague governance of scientific research and technological

innovation: the dilemma of orientation, the dilemma of legitimacy, and the dilemma of control. The dilemma of orientation risks innovation heedless of long-term implications. The dilemma of legitimacy grapples with delegation of authority in democracies, often at the expense of broader public interest. The dilemma of control poses that the undesirable implications of new technologies are hard to grasp, yet once grasped, all too difficult to remedy. That humanity has innovated itself into the sustainability crisis is a prime manifestation of these dilemmas.

Responsible innovation (RI), with foci on anticipation, inclusion, reflection, coordination, and adaptation, aims to mitigate dilemmas of orientation, legitimacy, and control. The aspiration of RI is to bend the processes of technology development toward more just, sustainable, and societally desirable outcomes. Despite the potential for fruitful interaction across RI’s constitutive domains—sustainability science and social studies of science and technology—most sustainability scientists under-theorize the sociopolitical dimensions of technological systems and most science and technology scholars hesitate to take a normative, solutions-oriented stance. Efforts to advance RI, although notable, entail one-off projects that do not lend themselves to comparative analysis for learning.

In this dissertation, I offer an intervention research framework to aid systematic study of intentional programs of change to advance responsible innovation. Two empirical studies demonstrate the framework in application. An evaluation of Science Outside the Lab presents a program to help early-career scientists and engineers understand the complexities of science policy. An evaluation of a Community Engagement Workshop presents a program to help engineers better look beyond technology, listen to and learn from people, and empower communities. Each program is efficacious in helping scientists and engineers more thoughtfully engage with mediators of science and technology governance dilemmas: Science Outside the Lab in revealing the dilemmas of orientation and legitimacy; Community Engagement Workshop in offering reflexive and inclusive approaches to control. As part of a larger intervention research portfolio, these and other projects hold promise for aiding governance of science and technology through responsible innovation.

ContributorsBernstein, Michael J. (Author) / Wiek, Arnim (Thesis advisor) / Wetmore, Jameson M. (Thesis advisor) / Grimm, Nancy (Committee member) / Anderies, John M (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)

Created2016

A framework for supporting organizational transition processes towards sustainable energy systems

Description

Economic development over the last century has driven a tripling of the world's population, a twenty-fold increase in fossil fuel consumption, and a tripling of traditional biomass consumption. The associated broad income and wealth inequities are retaining over 2 billion people in poverty. Adding to this, fossil fuel combustion is impacting the environment across spatial and temporal scales and the cost of energy is outpacing all other variable costs for most industries. With 60% of world energy delivered in 2008 consumed by the commercial and industrial sector, the fragmented and disparate energy-related decision making within organizations are largely responsible for the inefficient and impacting use of energy resources. The global transition towards sustainable development will require the collective efforts of national, regional, and local governments, institutions, the private sector, and a well-informed public. The leadership role in this transition could be provided by private and public sector organizations, by way of sustainability-oriented organizations, cultures, and infrastructure. The diversity in literature exemplifies the developing nature of sustainability science, with most sustainability assessment approaches and frameworks lacking transformational characteristics, tending to focus on analytical methods. In general, some shortfalls in sustainability assessment processes include lack of: * thorough stakeholder participation in systems and stakeholder mapping, * participatory envisioning of future sustainable states, * normative aggregation of results to provide an overall measure of sustainability, and * influence within strategic decision-making processes. Specific to energy sustainability assessments, while some authors aggregate results to provide overall sustainability scores, assessments have focused solely on energy supply scenarios, while including the deficits discussed above. This paper presents a framework for supporting organizational transition processes towards sustainable energy systems, using systems and stakeholder mapping, participatory envisioning, and sustainability assessment to prepare the development of transition strategies towards realizing long-term energy sustainability. The energy system at Arizona State University's Tempe campus (ASU) in 2008 was used as a baseline to evaluate the sustainability of the current system. From interviews and participatory workshops, energy system stakeholders provided information to map the current system and measure its performance. Utilizing operationalized principles of energy sustainability, stakeholders envisioned a future sustainable state of the energy system, and then developed strategies to begin transition of the current system to its potential future sustainable state. Key findings include stakeholders recognizing that the current energy system is unsustainable as measured against principles of energy sustainability and an envisioned future sustainable state of the energy system. Also, insufficient governmental stakeholder engagement upstream within the current system could lead to added risk as regulations affect energy supply. Energy demand behavior and consumption patterns are insufficiently understood by current stakeholders, limiting participation and accountability from consumers. In conclusion, although this research study focused on the Tempe campus, ASU could apply this process to other campuses thereby improving overall ASU energy system sustainability. Expanding stakeholder engagement upstream within the energy system and better understanding energy consumption behavior can also improve long-term energy sustainability. Finally, benchmarking ASU's performance against its peer universities could expand the current climate commitment of participants to broader sustainability goals.

ContributorsBuch, Rajesh (Author) / Wiek, Arnim (Thesis advisor) / Basile, George (Thesis advisor) / Williams, Eric (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)

Created2011