Responsibility Conditions

The conditions for doing research – and therewith also for doing responsible research – have changed quite rapidly in the past decades.
Via new public management structures and competitive project funding, researchers are increasingly accountable towards societal expectations. However, they also compete for scarce funding resources, have to be entrepreneurs with regard to their own careers and are bound to field-specific research cultures, valuation practices and myths about good scientific practice.

Under these conditions, the demand for more engagement with ethical issues and “responsibility” in general is entangled with other demands that may support, but can also prevent, values of responsibility to be integrated into academic practice.