Responsible Innovation | DelftX on edX | Course About Video

Responsible Innovation
Responsible Innovation - exploring the interface of ethics, society and technological innovations
About this Course
Innovation may bring a lot of good to society, but innovation is not a good in itself. History provides many examples of new technologies that have had serious negative consequences or that simply just failed to address significant societal challenges.
This course discusses the concept of responsible innovation, its meaning and its significance by addressing the societal implications of new technologies and showing how we might incorporate ethical considerations into technical innovations.
In this course, we will:
Discuss the concept of responsible innovation, the individual and collective responsibility and the ethical issues regarding innovation.
Discuss tools and approaches to responsible innovation, like Value Sensitive Design (VSD).
Investigate the economic aspects of responsible innovation.
Introduce constructive technology assessment.
Elucidate the relation between risk and responsible innovation.
We will do so on the basis of technological case studies. Cases that will be discussed are, among others, nanotechnology, offshore wind parks, Google car, nuclear power, cloud computing, smart meters for electricity, robots in the care sector (carebots), low budget meteorological weather stations in Africa and CO2 capture and storage.
During the course you may team-up with your fellow students to discuss the case studies in an international context. Moreover, students are encouraged to bring their own cases in dedicated discussion fora.
Learning goals
To understand and to be able to explain the various theories on and dimensions of responsible innovation.
To be able to recognize instances of responsible and irresponsible innovation.
To be able to discuss and assess (the ethical and societal implications of) real-life cases at the hand of theories pertaining to responsible innovation.
To be able to apply tools and approaches to responsible innovation, like Value Sensitive Design, to own innovation efforts.
This MOOC is for all those interested in the relationship between technological innovations, ethics and society. It is especially relevant for industry, public, and academic professionals working on developing innovative technologies and students following a traditional technical curriculum who are interested in key value questions attached to their studies.