Engaging the micro-foundations of responsible innovation: integration of social sciences and humanities with research and innovation practices

Responsible innovation requires scientists, engineers, designers and other technical experts to pay greater attention to the human and social dimensions of their routine practices, since these practices are sources of socio-technical change and hence resources for governing science and technology. Interdisciplinary approaches that seek to collaboratively illuminate and deliberately integrate the human and social dimensions of expert practices have proliferated, even as the challenges they face continue to remain formidable. This chapter considers the variety of approaches to socio-technical integration, arguing that it of necessity embodies multiple and fundamentally divergent rationales for engaging scientific and technical expertise. Such divergences must be reflexively and creatively taken into account if efforts to integrate the social sciences and humanities with research and innovation are to be successful.