Conversations@CRASSH: Nanotechnology and Beyond

Description

Conversations @ CRASSH are designed to explore the nature of conversation by having a conversation and by probing the idea of conversation itself.
 

Nanotechnology and Beyond: Public and Corporate Strategy
In association with the RSA Forum for Technology, Citizens and the Market

Question Time
Should the public have a say in what science private companies pursue? If so, what form should public engagement take? Alternatively, should commercial science be free to pursue whatever research direction is most profitable? Would public interference merely lead to commercial science leaving the UK?

Panellists include:

Dr Tom Wakeford (PEALS, Bioscience Centre, Newcastle)
Research interests: Action-research, particularly participatory methods in the UK and internationally, such as citizens' juries. Biology and evolution. Democratisation of science and technology, with a special interest in bio-knowledge and biotechnology. Popular science writing.

Dr Jack Stilgoe (Demos)
In September 2004, Demos argued in the report See-through Science, that spurred on by high profile controversies over BSE, genetically modified crops and now nanotechnology, scientists have gradually started to be more open about their work. But unless they do more to involve the public in debates over new technologies, we may see repeats of the kind of anti-science backlash that happened with GM. The report argues for 'upstream engagement' in science policy.

Dr Robert Doubleday (Nanoscience Centre, University of Cambridge)
Interests: social dimensions of nanotechnology.

Dr Jon Agar (History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge)
Interests: history of conteporary science, technology and politics; public engagement with commercial science.