A new research alliance will consider how future advances in science and technology will affect society.
Human curiosity is perhaps the main driver of scientific pursuit, fuelled by an innate urge for knowledge to better understand and to control our environment. But throughout history, new revelations then often had profound and sometimes unforeseen impacts on society.
One might think of the explosion of scientific insight, under the umbrella of natural philosophy, that prepared the ground for the Age of Enlightenment, or how advances in nuclear science brought great benefits for society but also made the annihilation of life on earth through military conflict a real possibility.
Any major advance will have consequences for how we live, and this will create complex issues for societies and their decision makers.
This understanding has led to a new Australian partnership between CSIRO and several universities, in which leading researchers and scientists will look at the challenges that are likely to result from research in areas such as synthetic biology, robotics, precision health, hydrogen and artificial intelligence.
The CSIRO Responsible Innovation Initiative is a five-year project funded with $5.75 million, and closely aligned with CSIRO’ s Future Science Platforms.
According to University of Queensland’s Provost Professor Aidan Byrne, the collaboration will examine and develop new policy and regulatory responses to new and emerging technological innovations.
The initiative will appoint five postdoctoral researchers who will look at new developments across synthetic biology, precision health, hydrogen, artificial intelligence, Indigenous futures and other areas of innovations.
The project will also seek to incorporate Indigenous knowledge and, according to Charles Darwin University deputy vice-chancellor Professor Bogdan Dlugogorski, “is an investment in Indigenous-partnered approaches to innovation and change that help us all invest in ethical, sustainable and exciting ways of thinking and working”.