From Responsible Innovation to Safe and Sustainable by Design? Ethics governance at a Swedish nanotechnology hub
Other conference contribution, 2023

Safe-(and-sustainable)-by-design (S(S)bD) collectively intend to render design processes and products safer and more sustainable as a sizeable step in promoting key enabling technologies in Europe. These attributes are proposed to result from technical and normative expert mediation, as demonstrated in studies on the ethics of emerging technologies. This frontloading of values like safety and sustainability can be seen as an adaptation of ethics governance projects, specifically regarding Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). Emphases on responsibility and anticipation, ex ante, contrast with approaches to redress environmental problems from mature technologies. Instead of this hegemonic amelioration ex post, value-by-design schematics explicitly seek to design away the bad or undesirable characteristics. Engineered nanomaterials and advanced materials offer empirical insights into Finn and Shilton's proposed 'ethics governance in the making' with their foundational role in both the (1) policy-centered futures of RRI and (2) regulator-oriented futures of S(S)bD. This follows from previous controversies about commercialized nanomaterials with well-known yet troublesome properties. S(S)bD principles are being implemented across the nanotechnology hub in the city of Lund, Sweden. This research aims to interrogate the credibility and legitimacy of implementing practices that claim to safeguard these values and the corresponding futures at stake. Specifically, how are value conflicts conciliated in the (re)production of safe and sustainable engineered nanomaterials? This study can contribute to discussions surrounding value-ladenness, design and technology in the tradition of STS studies on conflict and expertise and to the longstanding interest in the wider implications of nanotechnology in anticipation of safe and sustainable futures.

responsible research and innovation

ethics governance

nanotechnology

safe and sustainable by design

safe by design

value sensitive design

advanced materials

anticipatory practice

Author

Nicholas Surber

Chalmers, Technology Management and Economics, Science, Technology and Society

Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S)
Honolulu, Hawai'i, USA,

Mistra Environmental Nanosafety Phase II

The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (Mistra) (2013/48), 2019-04-01 -- 2023-03-31.

Subject Categories

Sociology (excluding Social work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology)

Ethics

Philosophy

Other Social Sciences not elsewhere specified

Driving Forces

Sustainable development

Innovation and entrepreneurship

Areas of Advance

Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

More information

Latest update

8/22/2024