News

New Grants Are Awarded to Inform the Public and Explore the Implications of Nanotechnology
Press Release 05-179

National Science Foudnation, October 6, 2005

http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=104505

Nanotechnology in Society: NSF has selected the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz., to create two new Centers for Nanotechnology in Society. These centers will support research and education on nanotechnology and social change, as well as educational and public outreach activities, and international collaborations.
 

In addition, building on previously supported efforts, the foundation has funded nanotechnology-in-society projects at the University of South Carolina and at Harvard University.

All four of these efforts are being funded under the Nanoscale Science and Engineering program at NSF, which is one of 22 federal agencies in the government-wide National Nanotechnology Initiative. More specifically:

• The Santa Barbara center will receive about $5 million over five years to focus on the historical context of nanotechnology; on the innovation process and global diffusion of ideas in the field; and on risk perception and social response to nanotechnology, with a special focus on collective action and the action of global networks in response to nanotechnology. The center will also explore methods for public participation in setting the agenda for nanotechnology's future.
   

• The Arizona State center will receive $6.2 million over five years to develop a broad program of "real-time technology assessment" (RTTA) for nanotechnology research. The center will use RTTA to map the research dynamics of nanotechnology; to monitor the changing values of the public and of researchers; to engage both these groups in deliberative and participatory forums regarding nanotechnology; and to assess the influence of these activities on the researchers. The center will organize its efforts around two broad nanotechnology-in-society themes: freedom, privacy, and security; and human identity, enhancement, and biology.
   

• Building from a current Nanoscale Interdisciplinary Research Team (NIRT) award, the South Carolina project will receive about $1.4 million over five years to examine the role of images in communicating about nanotechnology, and how research in this field is changing the scientific and engineering practices of the researchers themselves.
   

• The Harvard project will receive $1.7 million over five years to expand upon a prior NIRT award to UCLA. That project developed NanoBank: an electronically accessible database providing information about nanoscale researchers, research organizations and groups, patents, and firms. The new project, called NanoConnection to Society, plans to add a NanoEthicsBank and NanoEnvironBank; to integrate these and other databases into an overall NanoIndicator series; and to study the flow and distribution of patents in nanotechnology.

Taken together, these awards represent a new point of departure for NSF, explained Mihail Roco, NSF's Senior Advisor for Nanotechnology: "Since 2000 NSF has created 21 large centers and networks for nanotechnology," he said, each pursuing fundamental advances in topical areas from electronics, materials and biomedicine to manufacturing. "The two new networks are relevant to society and the public not only through their research and education targets, but also through their national goals, 50-state outreach programs and stakeholder participation. The nanotechnology field has been evolving rapidly since 2000, with technological, economic, social, environmental and ethical implications that could change our world."