The Challenges of Community Engagement

Lyons and Whelan provide a useful list of recommendations as to how community engagement on nanotechnology could be improved, which very few people working in community engagement could disagree with. However, as the conclusions of any study are dependent on the data obtained, if more data had been obtained and analysed then different conclusions might have been reached. Addressing the key issues in the paper and providing more data, also allows an opportunity to expand on current issues relating to community engagement on nanotechnology and the challenges it provides for practitioners

What happens in the Lab: Applying Midstream Modulation to Enhance Critical Reflection in the Laboratory

In response to widespread policy prescriptions for responsible innovation, social scientists and engineering ethicists, among others, have sought to engage natural scientists and engineers at the ‘midstream’: building interdisciplinary collaborations to integrate social and ethical considerations with research and development processes. Two ‘laboratory engagement studies’ have explored how applying the framework of midstream modulation could enhance the reflections of natural scientists on the socio-ethical context of their work. The results of these interdisciplinary collaborations confirm the utility of midstream modulation in encouraging both first- and second-order reflective learning. The potential for second-order reflective learning, in which underlying value systems become the object of reflection, is particularly significant with respect to addressing social responsibility in research practices. Midstream modulation served to render the socio-ethical context of research visible in the laboratory and helped enable research participants to more critically reflect on this broader context. While lab-based collaborations would benefit from being carried out in concert with activities at institutional and policy levels, midstream modulation could prove a valuable asset in the toolbox of interdisciplinary methods aimed at responsible innovation

Tolstojs klädkod: dräkt, mode, uniform och kostym i Krig och fred

This article examines what the novel War and Peace can be said to express through clothes and fashion. I argue for a multiple, and occasionally contradictory use of fashion and clothes in the novel, where the two are used as a means of setting the historic-realistic frame, but also to create stylistic, symbolic, parodic, or didactic effects intended to enhance central themes and ideological conflicts within the novel’s universe: the relationship between French and Russian linguistic and cultural spheres in particular. Moreover, I argue that the close relationship between clothes, language, and identity is notably visible in the critical discussion about War and Peace, not least among authors of Western high modernism such as Virigina Woolf; and that the novel itself has turned into a trope with a symbolic function in the contemporary fashion industry, where it has been used as a means of adding a fictional dimension to fashion, as well as consecrating one artform through another.

Introduction: Nanotechnologies and the Quest for Responsibility

This chapter provides an introduction to the issue of responsibility in nanotechnology development. After introducing the growing relevance of responsible development in nanotechnology policy and regulation, the chapter illustrates the structure of the volume and highlights three major aspects of responsibility that the book addresses: (1) responsibility and social relationships; (2) responsibility, division of social labour and institutional settings; (3) responsibility and orientation to the future. Eventually, the chapter suggests that the considerations proposed in the book about the responsible development of nanotechnologies offer useful entry points to frame a broader discussion on the responsible governance of emerging technologies

DuPont and Environmental Defense Fund Co-Constructing a Risk Framework for Nanoscale Materials: an Occasion to Reflect on Interaction Processes in a Joint Inquiry

Contains fulltext : 125355.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access

A Conceptual Proposal for Responsible Innovation

International audienceThe concept of Responsible Innovation holds that any innovation should take into account the balance of economic, ethical, social and sustainable aspects throughout the entire project in a manner that shows care for the future being constructed. However, as this concept is recent, originates in the context of the European Union and addresses issues of the Global North, critics have called for improvements in the way the concept is formulated. This article aims to establish a broader perspective to support the development of the concept of Responsible Innovation, which means discussing its main premises to highlight its critical aspects related to contextual terms, supporting a view to adapt it for use in different countries under various requirements and circumstances, thus facilitating its implementation on the path to innovation. Thus, an integrative review was developed. From an analysis of articles chosen based on research criteria, a useful theoretical framework was formed to fill the gaps in Responsible Innovation , comparing its perspectives to a traditional innovation, establishing a concept capable of yielding the expected benefits