Social and humanitarian support of innovative biomedical projects
At the level of manipulating cellular and sub-cellular structures invisible to the eye, biotechnological innovations could trigger, often against the will of their developers, multiple deep social processes which can lead to most diverse and unexpected consequences that may generate social instability. The concept of social and humanitarian support of innovation includes the notions of ethical and sociohumanitarian expertise (proactive diagnostics, assessing and managing risks) that have been developed earlier. The task of bioethics, which is developed as a part of modern technoscience, lies in pro-active (anticipatory) diagnosis, assessment and management of risks associated with the development and implementation of biotechnological innovations, not only risks with regard to human health or ecological well-being, but also those inherently social and human: moral, anthropological, legal, political, economic risks, etc. Innovation comes as a co-production of knowledge and the forms of its social adoption. Scientists have to understand something, engineers to develop something, while the various social groups have to come to terms with their personal, professional and/or public meaning of both actual and potential discoveries and inventions. In solving these problems, bioethics in collaboration (co-production) with biomedical sciences and technologies, plays its role in ordering of social relations, in the same way as science brings order into the natural world. This is the meaning behind the notion of social and humanitarian support of innovation. Science and technology of the future is a difficult object to manage, but the very management at its contemporary stage is not only a sophisticated technique, it is the control of sophistication itself. The ethical effort, including responsible research and innovations, bottom-up public involvement, and democratization of agenda-making, is intensifying. The concept of social and humanitarian support of innovation has to take its place in this process to facilitate dialogue between its major stakeholders.