Report from the Workshop:
Communication Outreach in Nanotechnology:
from recommendations to action
(Brussels, 24-25 October, 2007)
Editors: Matteo Bonazzi and Jennifer Palumbo
European Commission
Unit "Nano- and Converging Sciences and Technologies"
Date of publication: January 2008
This publication can be downloaded from:
http://cordis.europa.eu/nanotechnology
The views expressed in this document are entirely those of the Authors
and do not engage or commit the European Commission in any way.
More information on nanotechnology at the European Commission
is available on http://cordis.europa.eu/nanotechnology
Authors
Frank Burnet, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of West England, Bristol, UK
Giovanni Carrada, Private Consultant, Rome, Italy
Laurent Chicoineau, La Casemate – CCSTI, Grenoble, France
Sebastian Cremer, Lekkerwerken, Wiesbaden, Germany
Enrico De Capoa, Le Nuvole Società Cooperativa, Naples, Italy
Inge De Prins, COST Office, Brussels, Belgium
Catherine Franche, Ecsite, Brussels, Belgium
Alexei Grinbaum, CEA-Saclay SPEC/LARSIM, Paris, France
Paul Hix, Deutsches Museum, München, Germany
Claudia Kaiser, Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment, Energy, Wuppertal, Germany
Tom Kersevan, Brida Art Collective, Sempas, Slovenia
Guglielmo Maglio, Fondazione IDIS-Città della Scienza, Naples, Italy
Rosina Malagrida I Escalas, Barcelona Science Park, Barcelona, Spain
Sendi Mango, Brida Art Collective, Sempas, Slovenia
Alison Mohr, Institute for Science & Society, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom
Cynthia Needham, ICAN Productions, United States
Donal O'Mathuna, School of Nursing, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland
Jurij Pavlica, Brida Art Collective, Sempas, Slovenia
Helena Rodrigues, Fabrica Centro Ciencia Viva, Aveiro, Portugal
Maddalena Scandola, National Research Center S3 (INFM-CNR) Modena, Italy
Stephan Schaller, Triple Innova, Wuppertal, Germany
Melanie Smallmann, Think-Lab, London, United Kingdom
Carola Sondermann, European Food Safety Authority, Parma, Italy
Piotr Swiatek, COST Office, Brussels, Belgium
Table of Contents
FOREWORD 5
INTRODUCTION 8
PART I: LOGIC TREE 10
Workshop I : where are we now & where do we want to be? 10
Open Consultation 11
Workshop II : How do we get there? 11
PART II: BACKGROUND INFO AND FRAMEWORK FOR THE SECOND WORKSHOP 12
II.1 Background information 12
I . APPROPRIATE COMMUNICATION 13
I –TO WHOM SHOULD WE COMMUNICATE? 13
II – WHAT SHOULD WE COMMUNICATE ABOUT? 15
III – HOW SHOULD WE COMMUNICATE? 16
II. FOSTERING ENGAGEMENT THROUGH DIALOGUE 18
I – WHO SHOULD WE ENGAGE? 19
II – WHAT ARE THE RELEVANT TOPICS FOR ENGAGEMENT? 19
III – HOW SHOULD WE ENGAGE AUDIENCES? 19
II.2 Framework of the second workshop 20
I - Objectives 20
II - Participants 20
III - Methodology 20
PART III: RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS 23
III.1 Results 24
I - "PROFESSIONAL TIME" activities for specific target groups 25
II - "LEISURE TIME" Direct outreach activities for the general public 31
III.2 Conclusions 34
SYNOPSIS OF WORKSHOP RESULTS 35
ANNEX 40
AUTHORS 44
FOREWORD
Outreach, open dialogue and inclusiveness are key elements of the European approach to nanotechnology. Information, communication and fostering societal debate have already become integral constituent of the portfolio of European initiatives.
The European Commission (EC) has adopted in 2004 the Communication "Towards a European Strategy for Nanotechnology"[1] and in 2005 the "Nanosciences and nanotechnologies: An action plan for Europe 2005-2009"[2]. In these political documents, an integrated, safe and responsible strategy was proposed to Europe (and world wide). The EC stated that "societal impacts need to be examined and taken into account. Dialogue with the public is essential to focus attention on issues of real concern rather than “science fiction” scenarios". Moreover, the EC observed that "nanotechnology is poorly understood. Since it is complex and concerns a scale that is invisible, nanotechnology may be a difficult concept for the public to grasp. While the potential applications of nanotechnology can improve our quality of life, there may be some risk associated with it, as with any new technology - this should be openly acknowledged and investigated. At the same time the public’s perception of nanotechnology and its risks should be properly assessed and addressed".
The EC has highlighted appropriate communication and dialogue as an asset to put nanotechnology development in phase with people's expectations and concerns, at the same time also contributing to pave the way for a level playing field in the global market. In fact, "without a serious communication effort, nanotechnology innovations could face an unjust negative public reception. An effective two-way dialogue is indispensable, whereby the general publics’ views are taken into account and may be seen to influence decisions concerning R&D policy." Clearly, "the public trust and acceptance of nanotechnology will be crucial for its long-term development and allow us to profit from its potential benefits. It is evident that the scientific community will have to improve its communication skills."
Additionally, the EC also aimed to address the mandate in the action plan by proposing to " a better dialogue between researchers, public and private decision-makers, other stakeholders, and the public is beneficial for understanding possible concerns and tackling them from the standpoints of science and of governance, and to promote informed judgement and engagement".
In this light, the 6th and 7th Framework Programmes (FP6 and FP7) of the European Union for supporting and funding scientific research and technological development have played and play a pivotal role. Aiming at growth and competitiveness, they address also the role of science in society, which has several peculiarities in the new field of nanotechnology. EC-funded nanotechnology research (and use) should be responsible and thus respond to the needs, expectation and concerns of the European stakeholders.
The initiatives related to communication, outreach and dialogue with the so-called civil society include many projects funded within FP6 and presumably within the current FP7, which will last until 2013.
I am glad to present now this report summarizes the results of a one-year long process articulated through two different workshops intercalated with an open web-based consultation on communication outreach in nanotechnology: (i) the first workshop (organized on 6th February 2007) focused on the main issues to frame a strategy; (ii) the open consultation (from May to October 2007) provided a fundamental input in terms of comments and questions to be addressed in the (iii) second workshop (organized the 25-26th October 2007), identifying a set of potential actions to be developed by the EC. These events have been carried out with the participation of 48 international experts from the fields of opinion-making, science communication outreach, social engagement, design, arts and nanotechnology.
A crucial input has been provided from the web consultation open during six months on the nanotechnology website of the European Commission on the results of the first workshop. In fact, it has enabled to collect hundreds of comments from the lay public, allowing a wide variety of views, opinions, expectations and concerns from a broad audience to be integrated into the second workshop, whose results will be published on the web for a second open consultation: this process will allow the European Commission to feed a continuing open forum platform for facilitating the dialogue with civil society on nanotechnology.
A writing group prepared the initial draft of this report based on workshop discussions, and this final paper was reviewed by all workshop participants. The contents are based on the results of the group discussions. The structure of this report follows the main topics identified and discussed by the groups.
From the operational standpoint, both workshops consisted of an introductory lecture to identify objectives, methodologies and issues to be fine tuned through a first open discussion with participants. The different issues have therefore been clustered into themes responding to specific needs (i) from appropriate audiences, (ii) for crucial messages and (iii) specific vehicles to be addressed by activities of communication outreach.
This process has been facilitated by a set of open space techniques carried out by Commission officers enabling the discussion of themes by groups of experts flexibly self-clustering on the basis of different parameters (interest, expertise and challenge). A second open discussion aimed at presenting, refining and linking the results from the different group discussions in order to reach consensus. Finally, a conclusive plenary session enabled to structure the conclusions into a harmonized overall vision shared by all groups.
This exercise enabled to identify which audiences are crucial, which messages are appropriate, if any, and which vehicles, techniques and outcomes are to be set up to attain citizens who are not properly informed on nanotechnology, especially youngsters, selected stakeholders and tough-to-reach audiences. Assessment of current communication and insight of desirable outcomes have been outlined, exploring appropriate participatory mechanisms promoting dialogue with the broad civil society, which are specific to nanotechnology. Synthesizing, the importance of identifying key-audiences, key-messages and communication multipliers have been stressed as crucial issues for developing appropriate communication and dialogue on nanotechnology with civil society.
Assessing current communication experiences and outlining insight of desirable have emerged as two additional upshots of this exercise. This has allowed a preliminary exploration of the most appropriate participatory mechanisms promoting a balanced dialogue with the broad civil society. As a result, recommendations for actions emerge also for specific actions to be examined under future FP7 calls.
In my view, the outcomes of this process are instructive and valuable for continuing to better and better shape actions aiming at promoting and consolidating a culture of safe and responsible nanotechnology development and use. Analogous actions from other countries and organizations at national or international level will allow confronting and benchmarking the conclusions that the Authors have reached and that are here published, so to identify best practices. This document has been uploaded on http://cordis.europa.eu/nanotechnology/ in order to keep the discussion open. All citizens and stakeholders, in Europe and beyond, are welcome to continue expressing comments, opinions and suggestions.
Renzo Tomellini
Head of Unit
Nano- and Converging Sciences and Technologies
INTRODUCTION
The European Commission aims to promote an integrated, safe, responsible and socially acceptable approach for the development and use of nanosciences and nanotechnology. In order to carry out this goal, it is crucial to find ways of informing publics about the results and implications of such studies. At the same time, it is necessary to learn more about public opinion on nanotechnology and to build mechanisms that will allow open and accessible channels of communication to be put in place in order to connect different groups of stakeholders, with a view to fostering engagement and dialogue in society.
To this end, a number of actions on the communication and outreach of nanotechnology are being carried out in the EC, starting from the design and implementation of a "Communication Plan for N&N". In order to ensure that the actions planned cover the real necessities of professionals and society, the Commission has organised a series of consultations to collect recommendations from experts in the field of science communication on the best way to proceed with the communication of nanosciences and nanotechnologies. These recommendations will help shape the calls for proposals that are periodically issued to fund appropriate actions in communication and dialogue.
An introductory workshop was carried out in February 2007 with some twenty-five experts from science centres and other science communication organisations. The ensuing recommendations were collected in a report that was published online for public consultation, to which hundreds of comments were contributed.
A second workshop was then organised, with the help of experts from the fields of philosophy and sociology of science, science communication, science centre professionals, as well as artists and graphic designers. The objective of the exercise was to detail appropriate actions in science communication and dialogue building with society. The recommendations from the first workshop and from the open consultation were collected and fed into the second workshop.
The present document represents a report of the results obtained from the second workshop in communication outreach and the goals inspiring the communication activities of the European Commission in appropriate communication and dialogue on nanotechnology, structured in an introductory workshop, an open consultation, and a second in-depth workshop.
In the first part of the document, "The logic tree", we aim to give an overview of the structure at the basis of the communication activity through a synthetic representation of the underlying logic tree. In this section, the backbone of the exercise is described in the form of synthetic questions pinpointing the goals and objectives at the basis of the experts' consultation on nanotechnology communication.
Part II: Background info and framework
In the second part of the document, titled "Background info and framework for the second workshop", we describe the objectives in more detail, with the addition of background materials that have been assembled from literature and the results of the previous communication activities. The materials included in this section were elaborated in preparation for the second workshop. The first chapter describes the background information available through literature and results of previous communication exercises on the topics to be discussed by participants. These were offered to the experts before the meeting, with the objective of informing them, framing their discussion along the common set of objectives and sparking discussion within the groups. The second chapter describes the framework of the second workshop, including a description of the methodology implemented and of the panel of invited experts.
In the third part, "Results and Conclusions", the results of the group discussions are presented in the form of recommended activities to be funded by the European Commission in nanotechnology communication. These results are first described in a detailed form then summarised in a table. The conclusions that can be drawn from these results will help shape the future calls for projects in the field of nanotechnology communication, by identifying important target groups and issues and proposing relevant mechanisms to address them.
PART I: LOGIC TREE
· The introductory workshop on Communication outreach in nanotechnology was organised by the European Commission in February 2007 as a means of collecting information on trends and best practices in science communication that could prove particularly well suited to the special case of nanotechnology. Some thirty experts from science centres, universities and other branches of communication were invited to give input and generate ideas on the following two themes: where are we now and where do we want to go.