ABSTRACT
This chapter shows the increasing need for new regulatory forms that can be articulated through flexible modalities in order to be able to respond to the complex needs of society. In this sense, Responsible Research and Innovation is a fairly framework aimed at creating a meaningful and fruitful dialectic between technical and economic ambitions and the normative claims present in or arising from society. The category of innovation is often recognized as a main conceptual and managerial methodology able to respond to the radical changes that occur in the production process. If innovation suffers, perhaps, from a narrow understanding with respect to its social aspects, responsibility surely entails such a wide range of meanings generating opposite but equally important problems. However, it is important to highlight clearly that only on the basis of certain (pre)conditions are individuals enabled to assume a responsibility or to dismiss it.
