Nanotechnology - Nanotech Regulatory Document Archive - Arizona ...

scientists are not there to ‘conduct’ or ‘produce’ mediations, or to say it differently to make
participatory democracy work. They are there to study its deployment, develop understanding
about how new collectives emerge, how new organisations become legitimate in discussing
certain issues, how new fora are shaped and under which conditions they are performative or
become productive, etc. And what we, as members of a given society, can expect from them,
social scientists, is, rather than providing solutions, that they enhance our abilities to analyse
situations and our problem-solving capabilities.
Of course social scientists do and should involve themselves in on-going dialogues. But they do
this like hard or life scientists do, change hat and create companies or act as consultants or
experts, especially in the numerous expert groups or scientific committees established by public
authorities. They can also try and develop methods and processes that can help actors integrate
upstream societal dimensions (see for instance the EU funded SOCROBUST project 3 or the
work done by A. Rip and colleagues to develop CTA approaches that researchers can embed in
their own programmes or projects 4 ). In a way one can interpret this as the applied part of social
science research. But, as both roles are not confused when discussing academics that create
start-ups, they should not also for social scientists.
What I present here is an open debate that is for instance very visible in the way the
« international nanotechnology and society network » has been established. INSN gathered
beginning of 2007 researchers from 37 institutions from 11 countries. The network aims both to
advance knowledge et promote institutional innovation that can improve anticipatory governance.
Let me now conclude.
Taking the three entry points proposed by the Commission, I have tried to show that it is
important to ask social scientists to involve themselves in nano technology developments and
debates, and to participate jointly with other scientists, policymakers or societal groups in the
delineation of societal dimensions and potential social effects.
But that this is not enough. The development of nano sciences and technologies require a deeper
understanding of on-going processes and pose conceptual questions that require ‘fundamental’
academic research.
This has strong implications about the shaping of policies and programmes. And here let me
conclude by taking my hat of president of a national programme committee.
I recognise that the involvement of scientists is critical. But I fear that it will be productive only if
it is nurtured by more academic research for the development of new conceptual frameworks and
3 www.createacceptance.net/fileadmin/create-
acceptance/user/docs/Socrobust_final_report.pdf
4 www.nanoned.nl/TA/
192