'Good Governance' for Nanotechnologies: FramingNano Final Report Published
After two years of consultation, the FramingNano Governance Platform as the final outcome of the corresponding FP7 research project has been published. The Platform describes a heuristic process of how current and future challenges in nanotechnology governance can be identified, assessed and decided on, and proposes a number of strucutal elements to achieve this.
From the FramingNano project research it has been concluded that governance and regulation of nanotechnologies must be considered a dynamic affair which needs to be continuously adapted. This implies a continuous observation of the state-of-the-art knowledge on nanotechnology-induced change. Also, the relevant stakeholders and the interested public have to be meaningfully included in the definition of commonly accepted principles, criteria and values to be used for the assessment of these changes.
FramingNano identified and substantiated principles and procedures which are regarded essential to establish and maintain a responsible and sustainable development of nanotechnologies over the long term. These findings, cumulated in the Governance Platform, are now proposed to be implemented into the decision making processes of nanotechnology governance at the European level and beyond.
In order to identify procedures of how to implement the proposed Platform in Europe and beyond, the concept of the FramingNano Governance Platform is currently presented and discussed in a series of national workshops in the UK, Czech Republic, The Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland and Germany. After this series of national events, the Governance Platform will be handed over to the European Commission as the final deliverable of the FramingNano project.
The Innovation Society, St.Gallen, is the Swiss Partner in the FramingNano Project Consortium and in charge of organising the national event in Switzerland which will take place on the 18th of March 2010 in the Stade de Suisse in Bern. All interested stakeholders are invited to take part at this event where the Platform will be presented in detail, and where aspects of implementation will be discussed with the relevant national and international stakeholders.
The project website of FramingNano will be continued: www.framingnano.eu.
The Innovation Society, St.Gallen, is the Swiss Partner in the FramingNano Project Consortium.