CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 301Innovation, Technology, and SocietyResearch, Science, and AcademiaSustainability and Climate Change Governance

Collingridge and the dilemma of control: Towards responsible and accountable innovation

Open access
Genus, Audley, Stirling, Andy·2018·Research Policy
DOI 10.1016/j.respol.2017.09.012
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

The paper critically reviews the work of David Collingridge in the light of contemporary concerns about responsibility and accountability in innovation, public engagement with science and technology, and the role of scientific expertise in technology policy. Given continued interest in his thoughts on the ‘social control of technology’, and the ‘dilemma of control’, this attention is both timely and overdue. The paper illuminates a mismatch between the prevalence of citations to Collingridge’s work on the dilemma of control in the literature on responsible innovation, and the depth of engagement with his arguments. By considering neglected aspects of Collingridge’s substantive, methodological and philosophical analysis, important implications can be drawn for theory and practice relating to the governance of innovation and co-evolution between technology and society. The paper helps to improve understandings of wider political contexts for responsible innovation, especially in relation to anticipatory, participatory and institutional aspects of governance.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.respol.2017.09.012

Cites

96 of 96 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Moral accountability has instrumental value.

    “Moral accountability also has an instrumental value.”

    From Four Responsibility Gaps with Artificial Intelligence: Why they Matter and How to Address them (2021) · cites this paper as Genus and Stirling (2018)

    The Introduction discusses ethical responsibility and accountability, but does not say that moral accountability has instrumental value. The Conclusion contrasts responsibility as a struggle against incumbent power with instrumental facilitation; it does not establish or explicitly deny the claimed value. Searches for “moral accountability” and “instrumental value accountability” found no passage addressing the claim. (LLM, conf=0.72)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 5

  1. Collingridge, D., 1992. The Management of Scale. Routledge, London.
  2. Harremoës, P., Gee, D., MacGarvin, M., Stirling, A., Keys, J., Vaz, S.G., Wynne, B. (Eds.), 2000. Late Lessons from Early Warnings: the Precautionary Principle 1896-2000. European Environment Agency, Copenhagen.
  3. Fagerberg, J., Martin, B., Andersen, E.S. (Eds.), Innovation Studies: Evolution and Future Challenges. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
  4. Rip, A., te Kulve, H., 2008. Constructive technology assessment and sociotechnical sce- narios. In: In: Fisher, E., Selin, C., Wetmore, J.M. (Eds.), The Yearbook of Nanotechnology in Society, vol. I. Springer, Berlin, pp. 49-70 (Presenting Futures).
  5. Ziman, J., 1968. Science Is Public Knowledge. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Genus, A., & Stirling, A.
Affiliations
  • Kingston University London (GB)
  • University of Sussex (GB)
Corresponding author
Genus, Audley
ORCID
Venue
Research Policy
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2018-02
Volume
47
Issue
1
Pages
61-69
ISSN
0048-7333 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.respol.2017.09.012
OpenAlex
W2759653948
Cited by
301
References
96
Citations by year
2026: 41 · 2025: 32 · 2024: 41 · 2023: 64 · 2022: 38 · 2021: 39 · 2020: 23 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 1
FWCI
32.20
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Research Policy (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • Research Repository (Kingston University London) (acceptedVersion)
  • Sussex Research Online (University of Sussex) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
Funders
Economic and Social Research Council (ES/L01632X/1, ES/K006371/1, ES/I021620/1)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Innovation, Technology, and Society
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Research, Science, and Academia
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Sustainability and Climate Change Governance
Keywords
social control of technology, responsible innovation, innovation governance, anticipatory governance, participatory governance, institutional governance

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review