Governing at the Nanoscale People, policies and emerging technologies Matthew Kearnes Phil Macnaghten James Wilsdon The technical and social complexity of nanotechnologies demands a genuine dialogue between scientists and the public . . . About Demos Who we are Demos is the think tank for everyday democracy. We believe everyone should be able to make personal choices in their daily lives that contribute to the common good. Our aim is to put this democratic idea into practice by working with organisations in ways that make them more effective and legitimate. What we work on We focus on six areas: public services; science and technology; cities and public space; people and communities; arts and culture; and global security. Who we work with Our partners include policy-makers, companies, public service providers and social entrepreneurs. Demos is not linked to any party but we work with politicians across political divides. 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All our books can be downloaded free from the Demos website. www.demos.co.uk First published in 2006 © Demos Some rights reserved – see copyright licence for details ISBN 1 84180 156 9 Copy edited by Julie Pickard Typeset by utimestwo, Collingtree, Northants Printed by Calverts, London For further information and subscription details please contact: Demos Magdalen House 136 Tooley Street London SE1 2TU telephone: 0845 458 5949 email: hello@demos.co.uk web: www.demos.co.uk Governing at the Nanoscale People, policies and emerging technologies Matthew Kearnes Phil Macnaghten James Wilsdon Open access.Some rights reserved. As the publisher of this work,Demos has an open access policy which enables anyone to access our content electronically without charge. We want to encourage the circulation of our work as widely as possible without affecting the ownership of the copyright,which remains with the copyright holder. Users are welcome to download,save,perform or distribute this work electronically or in any other format, including in foreign language translation,without written permission subject to the conditions set out in the Demos open access licence which you can read at the back of this publication. Please read and consider the full licence.The following are some of the conditions imposed by the licence: ● Demos and the author(s) are credited ● The Demos website address (www.demos.co.uk) is published together with a copy of this policy statement in a prominent position ● The text is not altered and is used in full (the use of extracts under existing fair usage rights is not affected by this condition) ● The work is not resold ● A copy of the work or link to its use online is sent to the address below for our archive. Copyright Department Demos Magdalen House 136 Tooley Street London SE1 2TU United Kingdom c opyright@demos.co.uk You are welcome to ask for permission to use this work for purposes other than those covered by the Demos open access licence. Demos gratefully acknowledges the work of Lawrence Lessig and Creative Commons which inspired our approach to copyright.The Demos circulation licence is adapted from the ‘attribution/no derivatives/non- commercial’version of the Creative Commons licence. To find out more about Creative Commons licences go to www.creativecommons.org Contents Acknowledgements 7 About the authors 9 1. Behind the scenes at the museum 11 2. From bio to nano 15 3. Laboratories of imagination 25 4. Nanotechnologies in focus 41 5. A meeting of minds 57 Afterword 70 Notes 79 [...]... crops at every farm, suddenly the impact is enormous Where is the mechanism to put it all together?22 He expanded on this concern later in the interview: The big issue in terms of commercialising is what happens if you then approve another variety with another gene and then another variety with another gene You’d need to know something about the interrelationship of those genes if they come together... expectations regarding the promise of nanotechnology – that it will lead to new applications and assist in maintaining the position of UK science in a globalised knowledge economy And yet, the first thing one notices at the Centre is the strategic decision to call the laboratory a nanoscience centre rather than a nanotechnology centre Many of the researchers we spoke to stressed 26 Demos Laboratories... nanotechnology, Engines of Creation.45 In the same period, the UK launched a National Initiative on Nanotechnology (NION) with Demos 29 Governing at the Nanoscale strong backing from the UK X-ray and microscopy communities In the 1980s there appears to have been a ferment of ideas for research at the nanoscale, in which developments in STM played a significant role The fact that STM was developed by IBM... would start to see the end of the chemical industry or massive change in the chemical industry And I think they even said that by the turn of the millennium the chemical industry would have been gone I don’t really think then we were thinking about DNA, you know gene therapy and that stuff – that was a bit too early But those were the dreams and that’s still my belief It’s a belief that goes right back... with the general theme of fabrication and organisation of molecular structures The consortium will develop the basic tools to organise molecules at the hard/soft interface (the growth of ‘soft’ molecular structures off ‘hard’ substrates) by natural and other means, including self-assembly and soft lithography.40 What is going on here? It is clear that nanotechnology is fuelled by a range of expectations... and more about flushing out the kinds of issues (social, ethical, political, economic, scientific) that might spark controversy if debate about nanotechnologies were to gather momentum in the UK The focus groups generated a rich collection of insights, which are summarised in chapter 4 Demos 13 Governing at the Nanoscale The final phase of the research brought us to the Natural History Museum, where... ownership over the nanoscale by positioning 35 xenon atoms in the shape of the IBM logo – it also reinforced the imperative towards miniaturisation of electrical devices Through this trajectory, nanotechnology therefore became firmly rooted in developments of micro-electronics and advances in data storage Nanotechnology is positioned as the ‘natural’ inheritor of the drive towards miniaturisation in electronic... structure of matter’ Christine Peterson, of the Foresight Institute, described this to us: I think what we’re aiming at is the total control of the structure of matter The layman’s phrase they use is ‘building atom by atom’ which is not technically exact I think it is more you are building molecule by molecule But the meaning they are trying to get across is building with atomic precision So that is revolutionary... and others in campaigning coherently on GM-related issues arose from the fact that the dominant ‘risk’ discourse offered them minimal scope for interventions For example, Greenpeace’s stated approach to GM issues was articulated in the idioms of science alone: The difficulty Greenpeace has, is that we are a global organisation and, if one is to take value-based stances on what is and is not natural... nano laboratories and interviewing a range of prominent figures in nanotechnology 24 Demos 3 Laboratories of imagination Bruno Latour, a philosopher of science, once declared: ‘Give me a laboratory and I will raise the world.’36 By this he meant that implicit in laboratory practices and the organisation of science were a whole range of assumptions in which the relations between the inside (the technical) . we are grateful to everyone who took part in the research: the scientists and experts we interviewed, and the members of the public who participated in the focus groups. Matthew Kearnes Phil Macnaghten James. lab-based ethnography) spent a day with our 12 members of the public (all of whom had participated in the focus groups). This was a surprisingly open and positive conversation, which generated a lot. likely to occupy such a percentage of the area of the UK. The impact on insect production is small, the impact on birds is therefore likely Governing at the Nanoscale 18 Demos to be small, probably