While new technologies come with great opportunities to improve the quality of life, they also come with negative consequences. As such, it is crucial to create awareness about these consequences so that they can be countered, for instance by improving the design of the technology or by setting up the appropriate policy measures. The creation of awareness calls for instructing engineers, engineering students and other relevant stakeholders about possible consequences of new technology, and for providing the tools and methods to manage the process of technology development in a responsible manner. The EPT section has been at the forefront of the development of these tools and methods for the responsible management of technology.
A core question in our research is how to manage technology responsibly; nowadays this is often expressed in terms of ‘responsible innovation’. Responsible innovation requires reaching out to a wide range of stakeholders, form societal (interest) groups, to companies and governmental actors, which do not always speak the academic language of responsible innovation. It also require thinking about how to distribute responsibilities among the many parties involved, and to think about the institutions and incentive structures needed to make responsible innovation effective in the real world.
