“Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is not a recent concern, but dominated mainstream research already in the 1970s,” argued key-note lecturer professor Cyrus Mody (Maastricht University), during the annual conference of the Society for New and Emerging Technologies in Maastricht, 25-27 June 2018. Historical analysis resulted in some propositions concerning factors that influenced RRI since the 1970s in the USA. As the national security state was dismantled and the regulatory state was being built up, RRI increased.