Volume 20, Issue 2

We have written the introduction to this special issue on responsible research and innovation (RRI) in the UK and Japan as a visitor's guide to an imaginary island holiday park to emphasize how we have centered the situatedness of practices that contribute to responsibility in science and technology. Our overarching argument is that RRI cannot be discussed as a program without foregrounding its location, and that RRI therefore needs “alternative practices”—heuristics that inspire adaptation in context—above “best practices” that might be exported from historic centers of investment to historically marginalized peripheries. We have also gravitated to experiment and play as strategies to find more space for intellectually rich, personally satisfying, and collectively enjoyable work amid pressures for STS researchers to take on rote service work under RRI mandates. We welcome you to the place—トピアtopia—that our collaboration has built and invite you to travel with us through the alternative practices we have sketched out here.