Responsible Research and Innovation between “new governance” and fundamental rights

This chapter frames RRI as an emerging governance approach in the EU regulatory context. We argue that reference to fundamental rights makes RRI a distinctive approach to responsibility compared to other existing paradigms and that human rights, in particular those laid down in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, are not necessarily a constraint but can instead be a catalyst of innovation. Eventually we maintain that a governance framework based on the complementarity between legal norms and voluntary commitments might successfully combine the respect of fundamental rights with the openness and flexibility of the innovation process.