Abstract
In the wake of controversies over first-generation biotechnologies, the growing field of synthetic biology appears cognizant of the need to attend to the social, political, cultural, and ethical dimensions of innovation. Public engagement has emerged as an important means for attending to these dimensions. Here, we call attention to the problematic nature of one paradigm being drawn upon to conceptualize this public engagement for synthetic biology: social license to operate (SLO). After reviewing SLO's emergence in the resource extraction context and the existing critiques of SLO, we examine its current use in the synthetic biology literature. We argue that an SLO-derived model of engagement is especially inadequate for synthetic biology due to unique challenges posed by synthetic biology and the limited conception of engagement provided by SLO. We conclude by discussing alternative public engagement paradigms and examples better suited to inform synthetic biology governance.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 280-297 |
Number of pages | 18 |
Journal | Journal of Responsible Innovation |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 3-Apr-2020 |
Keywords
- Community and stakeholder engagement
- public engagement
- responsible research and innovation
- social license to operate
- synthetic biology
- RESPONSIBLE RESEARCH
- INNOVATION
- COMMUNITY
- OPERATE