Manchester Institute of Innovation Research ANNUAL REPORT 

Already anticipated by the establishment of S.NET in 2009 (The Society for the Study of
Nanoscience and Emerging Technologies), N&N is increasingly understood as an arena
worthy of social science research in its own right, but perhaps more significantly as a
case-example and precedent for the study of a broader class of emergent technologies
where particular conditions apply. These are conditions which combine fundamental
uncertainty with the ubiquity that comes with pervasive penetration into everyday lives;
production/consumption at industrial scale; impacting across a range of sectors and
applications as an enabling or platform technology; and the potential to produce a step
change in broader sweeps of technological innovation, productivity and economic
growth. A further condition pertains to the possibilities for public controversy arising
from perceived safety or ethical harm resulting from the development of a particular
class of technologies potentially creating societal counter-movements of various kinds.
These conditions lay the seed-bed for new and alternative interventions in the
governance of emerging technologies, such as organised public deliberation and
participation initiatives, the design and introduction of new governance instruments such
as Codes of Conduct for the responsible development and commercialisation of new
technologies; and corporate responsibility and ‘stage-gate’ assessment exercises etc.
Alongside the emergence of new technologies we witness new multi-actor experiments
in participatory governance complementing traditional State-regulation and ‘hard’ law
varying significantly from country to country. So, latest and forthcoming rounds of
technological innovation are increasingly co-developed with innovations in their
governance. Within this contested and negotiated arena of governance innovations, we
witness recent shifts in debates and practices. Grand, speculative, future narratives are
less evident. Indeed, the term de-futurisation (Zülsdorf et al 2011)7 captures a research
trend mirroring the reality that, for example, N&N is no longer an object for speculation
as to long-term future impacts, but is entering everyday lives ‘for real’ and ‘for now’.
MIoIR researchers have been pro-active not only in participating, but crucially, in shaping
these debates and research trajectories. Highlights from the engagement and research
activities of MIoIR staff in 2011 include:
A strategic collaboration ‘ the Innovation Co-Lab’ has been established between the
Georgia Institute of Technology School of Public Policy, Atlanta USA (GT); the Beijing
Institute of Technology Lab of Knowledge Discovery and Data Analysis, Beijing China
(BIT) and the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (PI for MIoIR Professor
Philip Shapira). The Innovation Co-Lab engages researchers in mutually developed
research collaborations, researcher exchanges, training, methodology development
and other related activities in the domain of science, technology, and innovation
management and policy. During 2011 a Co-Lab workshop involving senior and junior
researchers from all three institutes took place at MIoIR Manchester (20/21 June); and
was followed by a further workshop hosted by GT in Atlanta (12/13 September). Both
workshops were financially supported by the British Council. Co-lab activity covers
collaborative bidding, young researcher forums, short-course provision (policy
evaluation, foresight, advanced quantitative methods), methodological development
7 Zulsdorf, T., Coenen, C., Ferrairi, A., Fiedler, U., Milburn, C., Weinroth, M., (2011) Quantum Engagements: Social
Reflections of Nanoscience and Emerging Technologies , Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft AKA GmbH, Hedelberg.
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