East in the West: Europeans rethinking RRI with the help of Daoist Philosophy

Abstract

This paper answers a call from Chinese scholars to ‘humanize Responsible Research and Innovation’; namely, to recentre the framing and practice of RRI around individuals. To do so, RRI scholars and practitioners working in Europe report experiences with engaging in ideas from Chinese philosophy, specifically Daoism, and adapting them to European RRI realities. In this way, the paper aims to contribute to a dialectic learning process between Eastern and Western contexts of application for RRI. The paper explores how Daoist concepts such as wu-wei (non-action or effortless action), can play a role in humanizing RRI. Wu-wei inspires a shift from focussing on future end goals and best practices, to a focus on the present. It inspires a mindset of listening without too much judgement, interference, or desire to convince or even change others. We argue that wu-wei opens paths for deeply transformative learning.

Keywords

• Daoism
• Laozi
• responsibility
• wu-wei
• Zhuangzi