The emerging field of synthetic biology, the (re-)designing and construction of biological parts, devices and systems for useful purposes, may simultaneously resolve some issues and raise others. In order to develop applications robustly and in the public interest, it is important to organize reflexive strategies of assessment and engagement in early stages of development. Against this backdrop, initiatives related to the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) have also appeared. This paper describes such an initiative: the construction of future scenarios to explore the plausibility and desirability of potential synthetic biology innovations. We guided teams of synthetic biology students who participated in the large international Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition, in constructing scenarios aimed at exploring the plausibility and desirability of potential synthetic biology innovations. In this paper we aim to examine to what extent, and how, constructing such future scenarios contributes to RRI. In order to do so, we conducted observations and interviews to understand what kind of learning and reflection was promoted by constructing the scenarios in terms of four dimensions, which are discussed prominently in the literature on RRI: anticipation, inclusion, reflexivity and responsiveness. While we focus on how constructing future scenarios can contribute to strengthening RRI at a project (and individual) level, we also consider how far our experiment may foster RRI in the iGEM competition in general, and perhaps even inspire constructive collaboration between ‘social scientists’ and ‘natural scientists’ in the context of larger scientific research programmes.

合成生物学的新兴领域，即为了有用目的而（重新）设计和构建生物部件、设备和系统，可能会同时解决一些问题并提出其他问题。为了稳健地开发应用程序并符合公共利益，在开发的早期阶段组织反思性的评估和参与策略非常重要。在此背景下，与责任研究与创新（RRI）概念相关的举措也应运而生。本文描述了这样一个举措：构建未来场景以探索潜在合成生物学创新的合理性和可取性。我们指导参加大型国际基因工程机器 (iGEM) 竞赛的合成生物学学生团队构建旨在探索潜在合成生物学创新的合理性和可取性的场景。在本文中，我们旨在研究构建此类未来情景在多大程度上以及如何对 RRI 做出贡献。为此，我们进行了观察和访谈，以了解通过构建四个维度的场景促进了什么样的学习和反思，这在 RRI 文献中得到了重点讨论：预期、包容性、反思性和响应性。虽然我们关注构建未来场景如何有助于在项目（和个人）层面加强 RRI，但我们也考虑我们的实验可以在多大程度上促进 RRI 在 iGEM 竞赛中的总体发展，甚至可能激发“社会科学家”之间的建设性合作以及更大科学研究计划背景下的“自然科学家”。