‘Opening up’ science policy: engaging with RRI in Brazil

This article presents initial results from the Brazilian team in the Responsible Research and Innovation in Practice (RRI-Practice) collaboration, concurrently running in 22 countries. The project invites reflection from institutional actors through a variety of participatory exercises that focus on RRI’s potential for ‘opening up’ and impacting national science and innovation policy. After summarising the operational challenges faced during the research process, we focus on the main empirical findings. We conclude that despite its potential for opening up policy deliberation, RRI faces the inherent hurdles of surpassing longstanding Brazilian institutional traditions of hierarchical governance, autonomy and the dominance of linear models of innovation.