Everyone's invited to this event, to ask questions and debate the public
engagement issues raised by science-based companies. It should be
provocative.
==
Nanotechnology and Beyond: Public and Corporate Strategy
This Thursday, 24 February 2005, 5pm for 5.15pm
a CRASSH event, in association with the RSA Forum for Technology, Citizens
and the Market
at CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane, Cambridge, CB2 1RX
** Question Time format **
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)
Jack is working on a range of science, technology and society projects at
Demos including "Nanotechnology and sustainability" - an ESRC funded project
being conducted jointly with Lancaster University (ongoing research until
January 2006).
Before joining Demos, Jack was a research fellow in the Science and
Technology Studies department at University College, London, where he was
looking at debates involving scientists and the public around the possible
health risks of mobile phones.
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. Rob recently contributed to
the BBC programme 'Analysis' on the subject, see:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/programmes/analysis/transcripts/30_12_04.txt
Chair: Dr Jon Agar (History and Philosophy of Science, University of
Cambridge)
Interests: history of contemporary science, technology and politics; public
engagement with commercial science.
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