Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is a normative concept that has captured considerable attention on the Science and Technology (S&T) policy level, but also in academic discourses. It represents a new approach to how science, innovation and research can be shaped in accordance with societal values that builds directly on the concepts and methodologies of Technology Assessment (TA). The definition and operationalization aspects of RRI remain still unclear although key ingredients such as ethical acceptability are well established in S&T debates and embrace a spectrum of standard methodological approaches. In this paper we review the conceptual debate on RRI with a focus on its constituent parts. We then present a functional comparison between RRI and TA that proves the considerable conceptual overlap in the two approaches. We argue that TA methodologies and precepts should be employed as key operationalisational features in RRI. Finally we argue for a global perspective on RRI by describing a case study on global ethics in S&T that introduces an analytical framework for ethics debates.

Four categories of innovations have been identified by Freeman and Perez: incremental innovations, radical innovations, new technological systems (systemic innovations), and technological revolutions or new techno-economic paradigms. New techno-economic paradigms represent changes in technological systems that are so far-reaching in their effects that they have a major influence on the behaviour of the entire economy. Scarcity of oil and external costs like global warming are the key arguments and the main drivers of the change of the current paradigm. They will affect especially the mobility of individuals and the interlinked business models. Novel business models within newly created markets will raise e.g. extended mobility services, activities aiming at the infrastructure, new opportunities in the field of energy transmission and supply and even new strategies of recycling, reusing or reducing the use of resources in order to address global scarcity issues. Especially for the established players of the automotive industry like original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) or 1st and 2nd tier suppliers this implicates opportunities and risks at the same time. But also new players will get the chance to create and enter new markets with new or extended products or services and lead the new value chain. This paper compiles and evaluates current approaches and business models of selected OEMs together with upcoming players. Additionally their positions within the existing value chain are being analyzed and classified. Bringing together the identified drivers of changes with current trends within the automotive industry the authors also show new concepts of extended business models, e.g. the idea of an ecosystem, that have the potential to cause an additional shift of power within the global mobility value chain.