Disruptive innovation has become a hype in some industries, discourses and applied research fields and often has a positive connotation. This normative conception of disruptive innovation often arises from the context of sustainable development: outside existing systems and structures, new solutions for mitigating and adapting to climate change are to be sought. Ethical reflection is of particular importance. (IPCC, 2014). The paper, therefore, argues that a critical examination and definition of the disruption concept are pending. This means that it should be examined how the term is used in such a way that it is linked to normative expectations of research and innovation processes. Based on this, it is argued that disruptiveness cannot easily be invoked in research projects as a legitimising approach to positive social consequences of development processes. The concept of disruption is therefore related to changing knowledge spaces in research and innovation processes. By changing social interactions in socio-technical systems, reference systems for research and development processes are altered and dynamics are disrupted. Starting from the discussion of various possible definitions, the legitimacy of the demand for disruption in research practice is critically questioned. Thus, it is less a matter of radical change happening through external force, but rather of disruptive research or innovation being actively pursued Some problems with disruption are outlined in the introduction. The resulting questions are formulated in the first section. Some approaches and possible goals in modelling disruptive innovation are discussed in the second section. Finally, the state of the research and conclusions are discussed. The overarching question for the contribution is: “What is the significance of the concepts of disruption and disruptivity for the practice of responsible research and innovation, taking into account the technical shaping of new knowledge spaces”?