Stop re-inventing the wheel: or how ELSA and RRI can align

Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects (ELSA) originated in the 4th European Research Framework Programme (1994) and responsible research and innovation (RRI) from the EC research agenda in 2010. ELSA has received renewed attention in European funding schemes and research. This raises the question of how these two approaches to social responsibility relate to one another and if there is the possibility to align. There is a need to evaluate the relationship/overlap between ELSA and RRI because there is a possibility that new ELSA research will reinvent the wheel if it does not engage with the body of literature already present in RRI research. This provides unneeded extra bureaucracy, reformulations of research agendas, extra investment, and an overabundance of frameworks to implement, and ELSA research does not take advantage of the body of research developed in RRI. This paper evaluates how ELSA and RRI diverge, are complementary, and can be aligned.