Autonomy, Influence and Agency in Contemporary Society
Europe | 2028
Dates and venue to be announced.
In 2028, RESC will convene its inaugural International Conference, creating an interdisciplinary meeting point for researchers, practitioners, professionals and institutions interested in responsibility as a defining challenge of contemporary society.
The Conference will move beyond the question of who is responsible to explore the conditions that make responsible agency possible.
How do autonomy, culture, influence and social roles shape our capacity to exercise responsibility?
Where are the boundaries between influence and manipulation, assistance and dependency, delegation and loss of agency?
And how are these boundaries changing in societies increasingly mediated by artificial intelligence?
The inaugural Conference will focus on The Boundaries of Responsibility, examining responsibility across personal, relational, professional, organisational and institutional contexts.
A central area of discussion will be Responsible Autonomy, developed within the RESC model around a fundamental proposition:
Autonomy is a constitutive condition of responsible agency.
Responsibility requires sufficient autonomy. Yet autonomy is not understood within RESC as an individual virtue or a moral category. It is a condition through which responsible agency becomes possible.
The responsibility to preserve sufficient autonomy is socially embedded, culturally situated and proportional to the scope of the role exercised and the potential impact of decisions on others.
The Conference will open these propositions to international and interdisciplinary dialogue, critique and further development.
Responsibility cannot be understood from a single disciplinary perspective.
The RESC International Conference will encourage dialogue across social sciences, gender studies, education, organisational studies, artificial intelligence, leadership, cultural studies, ethics, public policy and related fields.
Particular attention will be given to the intersections between:
The objective is not to establish a single definition of responsibility, but to investigate its contemporary boundaries and the conditions through which responsibility can be effectively exercised across different contexts and cultures.
Responsibility is never exercised entirely in isolation.
Individuals occupy social roles within families, relationships, communities, professional environments, organisations and institutions. Decisions made within these roles may generate consequences that extend beyond the individual.
The Conference will therefore explore responsibility as a socially embedded phenomenon, examining the relationship between autonomy, agency, role and potential impact.
This perspective also raises a fundamental question for contemporary societies:
Is the autonomy available and exercised sufficient for the responsibility, role and potential impact involved?
The exercise of responsibility is also culturally situated.
Social norms, education, language, family structures, gender expectations, attitudes towards authority and different understandings of leadership, loyalty, independence and belonging can influence how autonomy and responsibility are understood and exercised.
The Conference will encourage cross-cultural perspectives capable of examining these differences without reducing responsibility to cultural determinism or moral judgement.
Understanding Responsibility Culture therefore also requires understanding the environments within which responsible agency develops.
Artificial intelligence introduces new dimensions to the boundaries of responsibility.
AI systems increasingly assist, recommend, interpret, generate and participate in processes that were previously dependent primarily on human judgement.
These developments create opportunities, but they also raise questions about cognitive delegation, dependency, influence and the preservation of human agency.
The RESC International Conference will provide a space for examining these questions within the broader relationship between technology and Responsibility Culture.
The RESC International Conference 2028 will be supported by an international and interdisciplinary Scientific Committee bringing together scholars and experts whose work engages with responsibility across different disciplinary, cultural and professional perspectives.
The Scientific Committee will contribute to the scientific development of the Conference, the definition of its thematic priorities and the quality of its scholarly programme.
Its composition will reflect the interdisciplinary approach of RESC, with expertise spanning areas including social sciences, gender studies, education, organisational studies, artificial intelligence, leadership, cultural studies, ethics and public policy.
Particular attention will be given to international and cross-cultural representation, supporting dialogue across different academic traditions and perspectives on responsibility.
Scientific Committee members will be announced progressively.
The inaugural Conference will represent an important milestone in the development of RESC – Responsibility Culture and a meeting point for the international community developing around its research agenda.
It will bring together established and emerging scholars, practitioners and institutions interested in questioning how responsibility is understood and how Responsibility Culture can be developed across different areas of contemporary society.
The Conference will also create a dedicated space for dialogue around the RESC Journal, strengthening the connection between interdisciplinary discussion, research and future scholarly publication.
The Boundaries of Responsibility
Autonomy, Influence and Agency in Contemporary Society
Further information regarding dates, venue, Scientific Committee, keynote speakers, participation and the Call for Papers will be announced progressively.
Call for Papers forthcoming.