Societal implications of nanoscience and nanotechnology: Maximizing human benefit

Roco, Mihail C.; Bainbridge, William Sims

doi:10.1007/s11051-004-2336-5

Cited by 247 publications

(147 citation statements)

References 6 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

141

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…From a historical perspective, it is no surprise if at the EU level the development of RRI went hand in hand with the development of nanotechnologies (Thoreau 2013). At stake was the felt need to 'get it right from the very beginning' (Roco and Bainbridge 2005), in order to avoid the failure of the GMO moratorium and to eschew 'irrational' struggles resulting from misunderstandings and leading to impracticable policy decisions (Grunwald 2014).…”

Section: Forget Your Perfect Offeringmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responsible research and innovation as a travesty of technology assessment?

Delvenne

2017

Journal of Responsible Innovation

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The relation between technology assessment (TA) and responsible research and innovation (RRI) is a very topical (and controversial) issue, as TA is clearly enveloped in AQ2 ¶ broader science, technology and innovation (STI) processes, such as the EU-wide shift towards RRI. In this short response to van Lente et al AQ3 ¶.'s essay, I first stress that this contribution has several merits; for example, it points to pervasive challenges for TA communities, such as the issue of including normative concerns when assessing innovations, it opens these challenges to debate, without shying away from engaging TA communities. However, I disagree with the authors' claim that RRI would be 'a next step of TA' or even a 'form of TA'. In my essay, I explain why I believe RRI is different from TA and why, rather than a critique of TA, RRI could instead lead to a travesty of TA, threatening the vitality and the uniqueness of TA institutions in the long-term. Under the spell of RRI, TA risks being reduced to a role of mere provider of ex-ante impact assessments. I conclude that following the money attached to RRI has a price that TA institutions should carefully, critically and reflexively consider before they pay. In the early nineteenth century, the English author Mary Shelley published a novel entitled 'Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus' that tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a grotesque but intelligent monster in a scientific experiment. Two centuries later, both the nature and the space of experiments have changed drastically. While experiments are still generally thought of as actions or operations undertaken to test a scientific hypothesis in settings detached from the rest of society (e.g. in scientific laboratories), I suggest situating responsible research and innovation (RRI) in a more macro-sociological understanding of 'experiment', one that implies a process of societal self-experimentation (Gross and Krohn 2005), and with social scientists and technology assessment (TA) practitioners partaking in the experiment as observing participants. 1 RRI's origins are often attributed to René Von Schomberg, 2 a Dutch philosopher with a background in science and technology studies (STS) and TA. Rather than in a scientific lab, it is from within the European Commission that Von Schomberg imagined the world of RRI (2011aRRI ( , 2011b. Like a modern Victor Frankenstein, the inventor now has to follow his conceptual creature and to face its intended and unintended consequences, ' (Van Oudheusden 2014, 2). It is also a label 'that may intuitively feel right, but which exhibits a lack of clarity in terms of definition, practice and, at a policy level, motivation ' (Owen, Macnaghten, and Stilgoe 2012, 752). In spite of its indistinctness, RRI's 'impressive' 'career through the realms of national and European policy' (Van Lente, Swierstra, and Joly 2017) and in academia deserves due attention, especially when it meets older traditions, philosophies and practices purportedly in line wi...

show abstract

Section: Forget Your Perfect Offeringmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responsible research and innovation as a travesty of technology assessment?

Delvenne

2017

Journal of Responsible Innovation

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Analysts argue that it is likely to have a horizontal impact across an entire range of industries and great implications on human health, the environment, sustainability, and national security (Roco and Bainbridge 2001;Lux Research 2007). To assess the perceived potential value of the emerging technology and promote its development, various governments have prioritized nanotechnology in their national agenda for science and technology development.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nanoscience and technology publications and patents: a review of social science studies and search strategies

2010

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We undertake a comprehensive review of more than 120 social science studies on nanotechnology, 90% of which are based on the analyses of the nanotechnology publications and patents. We discussed four intellectual debates formed by these studies, namely whether nanotechnology is an interdisciplinary field, whether nanoscience and nanotechnology are closely interlinked, whether nanotechnology development is path dependent and who is winning the global nanorace. We also conduct a comparative analysis of bibliometric search strategies used in the literature to harvest the publications and patents, including lexical queries, evolutionary lexical queries, citation analysis, and the use of core journal sets to identify nanotechnology articles. Because most of the compared strategies, except the one using 10 core journals in the field, share a core set of keywords and thus harvest a common batch of publications, they produce very similar ranking tables of the top subject areas and journals and the most prolific countries and institutions. Moreover, the core journal strategy does not provide a robust delineation of an emerging field such as nanotechnology due to the fact that nanotechnology related articles are published in a wide range of journals. Also, the different criteria for selecting the core journals will affect the analytical results dramatically.

show abstract

“…Heralded as a promising field, nanotechnology is expected to heavily influence socioeconomic development (Roco & Bainbridge, 2005;Zucker & Darby, 2007). Accordingly, many countries have prioritized nanotechnology on their national research agendas (Roco, 2005); China is no exception.…”

Section: Selection Of Nanotechnology As the Focus Fieldmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does “birds of a feather flock together” matter—Evidence from a longitudinal study on US–China scientific collaboration

Tang

2013

Journal of Informetrics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Societal implications of nanoscience and nanotechnology: Maximizing human benefit

Cited by 247 publications

References 6 publications

Responsible research and innovation as a travesty of technology assessment?

Responsible research and innovation as a travesty of technology assessment?

Nanoscience and technology publications and patents: a review of social science studies and search strategies

Does “birds of a feather flock together” matter—Evidence from a longitudinal study on US–China scientific collaboration

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About