Science Policy and Concomitant Research in Synthetic Biology—Some Critical Thoughts

In science policy, public controversy around synthetic biology has often been presented as a major risk because it could deter innovation. The following inter-related strategies for avoiding contestation have been observed: (1) There have been attempts to close down debates by alluding to the importance and legitimacy of reliance on scientific evidence as input to regulatory processes. (2) Scientific policy advice has stressed sufficiency of existing regulation, economic risks of additional regulation and/or suggestions for monitoring that are limited in scope. (3) Initiatives for self-governance have narrowed the scope of topics for consideration. (4) Engagement with humanities, social sciences and arts has been co-opted for legitimisation and science communication. Although such agendas are of course not ubiquitous, in this paper, I criticise that instrumentally motivated engagement has been supported not only by the scientific community but also by policy institutions and funding bodies. I argue that it is good that this now seems to fuel controversy in the academic and policy realms. As synthetic biology is not the only technoscientific field to see such dynamics, this is also part of the broader context of debate about the governance of science, especially the concept of “responsible research and innovation” (RRI) currently promoted in the EU.