EGENIS seminar: "Social practices, contested values. Forensic genetics innovations for policing" "Dr Matthias Wienroth (University of Northumbria)

This paper contributes to studies of values and valuation within debates about social practices of responsible innovation. It proposes to understand innovation as social practice, and values in innovation as temporary settlements of considerations around validity, operability, and social compatibility of socio-technical innovation. As such, the paper adopts a practice-based approach to values in new technologies and their respective emerging governance and practice arrangements around Reliability, Utility and LEgitimacy (RULE). These three principles combine scientific with operational and social aspects of innovation as centre points around which deliberative engagement can be facilitated between different societal perspectives, offering the opportunity to develop greater awareness of diverse and at times competing understandings of values.