There is a growing concern for the proper role of science within democratic societies, which has led to the development of new science policies for the implementation of social responsibility in research. Although the very expression ‘social responsibility of science’ may be interpreted in different ways, many of these emerging policy frameworks define it, at least in part, as a form of anticipative reflection about the potential impacts of research in society. What remains a rather under-discussed issue is the definition of the bearer of the social responsibility of science. In other words, it is not clear who is supposed to engage in such an anticipative reflection, whether individual researchers or research groups. In the past few years, philosophers of science have begun to use qualitative research methods to fill the gaps between normative models of the organisation of ideal scientific communities and the reality of actual scientific practices. In this article, I follow this approach to discuss the issue of the collective dimension of the social responsibility of science. I rely on a qualitative study conducted on an interdisciplinary research group and I describe how group dynamics position individuals and distribute duties and roles, including social responsibility. Qualitative descriptions of the distribution of duties within actual research groups should inform the formulation of general prescriptive theories on the collective responsibility of science.

人们越来越关注科学在民主社会中的适当作用，这导致了新的科学政策的制定，以履行研究中的社会责任。尽管“科学的社会责任”这一表达方式可能有不同的解释，但许多新兴政策框架至少部分地将其定义为对研究对社会的潜在影响的一种预期反思形式。科学社会责任承担者的定义仍然是一个未被充分讨论的问题。换句话说，尚不清楚谁应该参与这种预期性反思，无论是个人研究人员还是研究小组。在过去的几年里，科学哲学家开始使用定性研究方法来填补理想科学共同体组织的规范模型与实际科学实践的现实之间的差距。在这篇文章中，我沿着这个思路来讨论科学社会责任的集体维度问题。我依靠跨学科研究小组进行的定性研究，描述了团体动态如何定位个人并分配职责和角色，包括社会责任。对实际研究小组内职责分配的定性描述应该为科学集体责任的一般规范性理论的制定提供信息。