*Denis Loveridge b, Ozcan Saritas b adg Joint research Centre Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Calle Inca Garcilaso 3, 41092 Seville, Spain
but in human societies it has perceptual and physical components infecting matters relating to society, science and technology, economics, ecology, politics and value/norms:
and technology development and economics always prevails, instead. The history of governance is concerned mostly with how the public's perception of technological innovation has grown over time.
The relationship between advances in technology and human social development was established during the Enlightenment well before the notion of‘economics'was born as a cultural invention, rather than as a pseudo-objective science.
More recently, the pace of migration of new science and technology (S&t) has increased under the influence of the widespread use of new socioeconomic communication technologies and the globalisation of the world markets.
slow running unease with the assumption that all science and technology were‘good things 'and that human mental plasticity would always adapt to them,
and technology, has been accompanied by a growing rejection of technological determinism. H g wells and Aldous Huxley were among the earliest authors to challenge the conventional mantra,
However, it was probably the use of the fission nuclear weapons to end WORLD WAR II that gave added impetus to the questioning of the role of science and technology in human development.
both organisations introduced rules for technological assessment, although with less formal attempts to assess the social accounting cum auditing of business activity.
Technology assessment (TA) has diverged into environmental impact analysis (EIA), strategic environmental impact analysis (SEIA) andconstructive TAWHILE otherprocesses include energy analysis (firstdevelopedbysoddy) andlife cycle analysis (LCA).
Similarly, the continuing pressure for the public participation in science and technology decision-making processes, elsewhere called a‘democratic deficit'and coming from Greenpeace, the Friends of the Earth, the ETC Group,
-Avoid the assumption that people have infinite plasticity towards new technology. -Increase trust between policy makers, business and the general public,
when products and services based on new technologies are rejected when they are launched or soon afterwards. -Create policy processes amenable to current
Implicitly, sustainable development recognises the need for technology to develop solutions that conserve the Earth's resources,
User-centred innovation assumes that user participation may help to prevent technological deadends reduce dependency on vendors
and promote universal interoperable technology when innovation processes are shaped by the social environment. CSR brings wider societal concerns and values, such as human rights, ethics and corruption, into business strategy and decision making.
Indexes such as FTSE4GOOD Index, 4 Domini 400 Social Index and Dow jones Sustainability Index played a crucial role in the commercial breakthrough that SRI has seen over the last decades due to the fact that they allow benchmarking between the performance
and science and technology. Their aimis to ensure thatmnes operate in harmony with the policies of the countries where they operate.
Factors such as public awareness of industrial and technological risk, growing instances of social resistance to new technologies,
Hence it is important to be clear that there is a need for emerging technologies to be subject to social scrutiny.
Firms will need to focus on themes like creativity, breakthrough innovation, entrepreneurial solutions to great challenges, like pandemics and climate change,
to understand and to have a say on new technological choices in appropriate settings, may be ready and willing to exert their own right in decision making processes
The conditions for democratic governance of technology and innovation need to be acknowledged and discussed. Rather than just opening dialogue between science and society solely in terms of environmental or health impacts, there is a need to tackle broader social concerns such as ethical and cultural values, power relations,
Thus issues underlying social reaction to new technologies and the undisclosed ways in which industries take decisions must be resolved.
1. Rapid and accelerating technological progress in pervasive fields such as microelectronics, ICTS, biotechnology, new materials, fuel cells and nanotechnologies. 2. Increased financial, trade and investment
technology, environment, natural resources, biomedical aspects, institutional and legal matters as well as the socioeconomic aspects.''Davitaya 41 enlarged Evan's definition describing,
and scientific breakthrough are pseudo-random, if not totally random events in time and nature. In contrast innovation is the widespread use of an artefact, a social process in the widest sense,
The greater acknowledgement of the co-evolution of technology and society, as well as the claim that FTA practices should be submitted to interpretation of their significance by the relevant disciplines of the social sciences
For this purpose, looking at the survey results we suggested a STEEP (Social-Cultural, Science & Technology, Energy, Ecology and Economy,
Shift to digital technology; Trend toward ever smaller, more mobile and more powerful computation-communications devices,
Human aging breakthrough; Solar flare, asteroid impacts, discovery of an alien; Autonomous computers; The attacks of September 11, 2001,
erosion of traditional family Return of family Spiritual revolution Technology: rapid progress of ICT and biotech End of Moore's Law 100 years life expectancy Environment:
They can take many forms such as‘technological discontinuities'.'According to at least one analyst 14, technological discontinuity is represented in a new technology
or in the repackaging of a set of existing technologies that result in quickly obsoleting a product or service.
An example from the 1960s is the introduction of the electronic calculator. In a very short time, slide rules and mechanical calculators disappeared and, in some cases,
or find ways to use the new technology. Another more recent example is that of using the Internet and the tcp ip protocol to transport voice calls.
This application of the Internet represents a technological discontinuity for traditional telephone companies and provides an opportunity for small entrepreneurs to enter the telephone business with relatively little investment.
In general, the Internet and the Web represent technological discontinuities for many sectors and thus both create new opportunities
and expose potential threats for those attached to old or inflexible technologies. As just one example,
Another series of examples have emerged recently in the excellent work by Social Technologies, based in the USA.
or in technology terms, the speed of take up of‘‘Mosaic''(precursor to Netscape) as the first Internet browser in 1993,
and signs usually associated with early developments in technologies, societal innovations, conflicts, origins of conflicts, etc. that while not easily verifiable from a present day perspective.
, Moral & Legal Issues 2. Science & Technology Science Culture & Discoveries Technology Progress Innovative, Transformative Applications & Products 3. Energy Current Energy Use
it is rather clear that trends involving technology change and uncertainties about environmental, climatic and energy systems change are on the top of respondents minds.
and home-based healthcare increase Science & Tech. 77 More multi-disciplinary and e-science GM disease resistant plants and microbes for energy Automatisation and robotics growth
Increased surveillance smart security, disruptive surveillance technology big business Energy 42 Peak oil Growth of renewable energy:
Science and Technology; Energy; Ecology and Economy; and Geopolitics and Security (STEEP. Furthermore, high impact assessment is more prevalent among the more highly experienced respondents(>10 years.
This distribution and differentiation could be a result of how recent technology challenges such as genetically modified organisms have attracted more intense controversy in Europe than in other regions
Technology improvements are seen to be accelerating and pervasive; Infrastructure stress and threats to stability are likely to continue or intensify;
competences Ensuring equity in the development of new technologies Self-proficiency and hoarding alters social patterns Decline of motivation in the youth cohort of industrialised and aging societies Ethics in capitalism under scrutiny Growing tribalism around national,
religious and team sport identities Changes in health risk perception Ethical investment in development projects to promote sustainability Science & Tech. 46 Maturation of S, T and Humanities relationship
cultural, physical and biological improvements New investments in the Internet capacity improvement Progress in genetic therapy, stem cells and molecular medicine pharmacology Sunburst of change in vehicle technology
Examples of wild cards shocks by category A b c Society & Culture 42 Rise of dogma, e g. creativism/creationism, social resistance to technological change New diseases from pharmaceutical and space
Blockage of free trade due to a major pandemic Science & Tech. 9 Big disasters in science creation of out-of-control species, viruses, robots Disruption of technological systems Artificial intelligence passes human capacity Shocking scientific discovery challenges all hitherto received ideas, e g.,
, interrestrial visitors, alliance, eco-collapse, biotech Increased impact of converging technologies on social life Natural language codifications becomes available allowing people communicate globally New s&t paradigms for knowledge society
and people well being Human animal communication Energy 12 New transportation based on new types of flying cars on hydrogen change all traffic patterns Nano thin film solar breakthroughs
allow energy production from all surfaces fading the sun Successful nuclear fusion shifts energy to electricity and hydrogen Regression in the development because of mismanagement of energy sources Hydrogen from LG means pervasive bio-hydrogen production possible Peak oil and climate shifts decisively confirmed meaning to rapid
Energy, resource and environmental breakthroughs are included which provide a positive outlook as well as more familiar negative discontinuities;
& Tech. 13 Scientific community discredited, isolated and ostracised Accelerated ICT development in ubiquitous computation All communications are based mobile,
Energy 13 Energy availability increases plentiful oil and other alternatives Rapid advances in concentrated solar energy Technical breakthrough in electric energy storage Sudden stop
of research into renewable and alternative energy sources New cost-effective sources of renewable energy identified Breakthrough in hydrogen production methods require infrastructure requirements Massive failure of airlines
New ethics, new freedoms, new rights and technologies out of control are cited; Also worthy of deeper probing in subsequent surveys.
but more definitive in terms of technological and ecological signals. In many areas, the weak signals if and when they become strong will signify real shifts toward new
law and life styles Dependence on anti-factual information, failing roots of knowledge and understanding Declining male fertility Human cloning Science & Tech. 33 Ubiquitous connectivity web
and robotics change human race Less usage of human brain Freedom to do any type of Research breakthrough in plant gene to create antibiotics for cancer Nano membranes allow humans swim under water without air tubes Researchers
& Security 26 Independent regions in Europe Marginalised proponents of terrorism Geopolitical conflict over fisheries and water resources Liberal counterrevolution in Iran Increased technological pressure to redefine confidentiality
and Africa Technologies out of control Changes in the gravity of the earth O. Saritas,
Detecting and analysing emerging science and technology issues: the EFMN issue analysis, Foresight 10 (2008) 6, 90 102.3 DCDC, The DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme:
Jantz, Technological Discontinuities in the Library: Digital Projects that Illustrate New Opportunities for the Librarian and the Library, in:
15 Social Technologies, Discontinuity: Mobility, 2008. Available at: http://www. socialtechnologies. com/Fileview. aspx? filename=PR DISCONTINUITIES MOBILITTYV2%20ks%20mh%20eds final. pdf (last visited on:
*Cristiano Cagnin b a Australian Centre for Innovation, Australia b European commission, DG Joint research Centre, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Spain‘‘Cassandra was a daughter of Hecuba
The setting for the interviews was the Future-oriented technology analysis International Conference organised by the EU Joint research Centre Institute for Prospective Technology studies (IPTS) in Seville in October 2008.
The focus of the Conference was on foresight, technology forecasting and technology assessment methods and tools.
and Technology analysis & Strategic management 8. The large number of papers submitted in 2008 is an indication both of the central role the FTA Conference has come to play, principally for European researchers but also increasingly for researchers from around the world,
New technology Foresight, Forecasting & Assessment Methods, 2004, European communities Technical Report EUR 21473 EN. 5 F. Scapolo, New horizons and challenges for future-oriented technology analysis:
8 J. C. Harper, K. Cuhls, L. Georghiou, R. Johnston, Future-oriented technology analysis as a driver of strategy and policy, Technology analysis & Strategic management 20 (3)( 2008.
restraining urban sprawl, self-sufficiency, and new technologies). Reflecting a broader discussion on the benefit and limits of combining different methods,
if broadly conceived in technological, social, organizational and institutional terms. Hence, it will be important to be able to manage inclusion
10.1108/14636681211256071 Jens Schippl and Torsten Fleischer are both Senior researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of technology (KIT), Institute for Technology assessment and Systems analysis (ITAS), Karlsruhe, Germany.
Transport is strongly based on a modern technology-infrastructure combination. This‘‘hardware''co-evolved with what we can observe today as modern travel patterns.
Also, the technology-infrastructure systems are enabled dependent on, and by, technological developments in different areas; the most important of which might be the energy sector and the development of information and communication technologies.
So, transport is a socio-technical system that is influenced by, and interwoven with, many factors inside and beyond its boundaries.
The rapid progress in information and communication technologies enabled the application of sophisticated transport models.
There is a discussion about the potentials of discursive tools in the literature related to participative Technology assessment (pta;
pricing measures or technology incentives on travel behaviour are predictable to a very high degree.
Grunwald, A. 2009),‘Technology assessment: concepts and methods'',Handbook of the Philosophy of Science, Volume 9:
Philosophy of Technology and Engineering sciences, Elsevier, New york, NY, pp. 1103-45. Hanley, N. and Barbier, E. B. 2009), Pricing Nature.
, J.,van Est, R.,Joss, S.,Bellucci, S. and Bu tschi, D. 2000), EUROPTA, The Danish Board of Technology, Copenhagen, available at:
About the authors Jens Schippl is a Senior researcher at the Institute for Technology assessment and Systems analysis (ITAS), Karlsruhe Institute of technology.
jens. schippl@kit. edu Torsten Fleischer is a Senior researcher at the Institute for Technology assessment and Systems analysis (ITAS), Karlsruhe Institute of technology.
He serves as Deputy Head of the Department of Innovation processes and Impacts of Technology at ITAS.
In many ways, foresight techniques also originally arose out of the need to deal with unexpected events in the technology and political arenas, for example the classic Shell scenarios.
B Low-carbon technology will improve significantly in all sectors by 2050. B Prices of fossil fuels will rise
4. Technology is the key (business-as usual scenario, solutions relying on decentralised energy production and increased use of nuclear power).
and a genuine will of most members of society to work for the environment, obedience of the law, good technological know-how, abundant resources of biofuels and the infrastructure from forest to industry already in place (as a heritage from paper and pulp industry),
Be self-sufficient D Technology is the key Leading idea Eco-efficiency, diminishing energy consumption Restraining urban sprawl
high-tech products and high skill-level services most important sources of income, no energy intensive industry Demand and supply of small-scale local products and‘‘at home''services has increased significantly.
CCS technologies in use (continued) PAGE 310 jforesight jvol. 14 NO. 4 2012 Table II Scenario/variable A Efficiency revolution B Sustainable daily
mile C Be self-sufficient D Technology is the key Urban structure Cohesive, in urban areas people move closer to central cities,
Preemptive nature conservation Nature as a source of admiration and recreation Nature as a partner Cleaning up the mess made as much as possible Relation towards technology New technology as a lever
finding new intelligent ways to use old technologies New technology as a lever and enabler, mimicking nature,
Bottlenecks hindering the growth of new business opportunities for low-emission technology and applications should be analysed and removed.
remarked on that occasion that it was a major breakthrough achievement to have committed Finland to reducing its emissions to a sustainable level by at least 80 per cent from the 1990 level by 2050.
restraining urban sprawl, self-sufficiency, and new technologies. However, the implications of the scenarios include somewhat radical elements.
except for the scenario D. Its tentative title‘‘Power from Decentralisation''was transformed into‘‘Technology is the Key''.
Tracing emerging irreversibilities in emerging technologies: The case of nanotubes Rutger O. van Merkerk T, Harro van Lente 1 Department of Innovation studies, Utrecht University, P o box 80125,3508 TC, Utrecht, The netherlands
and understanding the dynamics of emerging technologies. Our key concept is the notion of irreversibilities that emerge in the ongoing activities of researchers, institutes, policy makers and firms.
To conclude, we will discuss how the analysis of early dynamics is a vital ingredient of technology assessment studies that,
By placing the constructive technology assessment (CTA) approach in a historical perspective of technology assessment we will show the relevance of our method for CTA studies.
D 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Emerging technology; Irreversibility; Technology assessment; Expectations; Agenda building 0040-1625/$-see front matter D 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:
10.1016/j. techfore. 2004.10.003 T Corresponding author. Tel.:++31 30 2537462. E-mail addresses: r. vanmerkerk@geo. uu. nl (R. O. van Merkerk) 8 h. vanlente@geo. uu. nl (H. van Lente.
1 Tel.:++31 30 2537807. Technological forecasting & Social Change 72 (2005) 1094 1111 1. Introduction Assessing emerging technologies is a necessary,
although difficult task. This originates from the fact that the early phases of technological development show a great deal of fluidity and open ends,
nevertheless lead to significant future rigidities (in terms of technologies, applications and stakeholders). If one does not just await the outcomes,
when a technology is in the early stages of development, it is very hard to foresee the social impacts of the technology,
but the course of development can still be altered easily. When the technology becomes part of our economic and social system,
social impacts can be observed. However, changing/controlling the technological development becomes extremely difficult. This dilemma highlights the importance of understanding the dynamics of technological developments even at very early stages.
when the technology is still emerging and not yet entrenched. Emergence is the process or event of something coming into existence.
For example, there is a visible increase in the number of linkages between the heterogeneous actors together in search of defining the newly emerging field or technology.
At a later stage technological trajectories 3 can appear but in the emergence state no
but intrinsic uncertainties inherently related to emerging technologies. Our basic claim is that in order to appreciate and to influence developments in new emerging technologies,
an understanding of the dynamics is necessary. As nanotechnology is intended the partly, partly unintended outcome of the moves of many actors in industry, research and policy,
and we employ it in our case study. We will show that it is possible to trace emerging irreversibilities for a specific application of nanotubes (Section 3). We will conclude by placing our contribution in a historical perspective of technology assessment
and by discussing the relevance of our method for constructive technology assessment, or CTA. 2 2 Constructive technology assessment studies of nanotechnology are at the moment being performed in The netherlands.
These studies are part of a Dutch research and development programme that coordinates the efforts of leading research institutes and companies in The netherlands in the area of nanotechnology.
tracing emerging irreversibilities The basic claim is that a contribution to the understanding of the emergence of technological paths can be expected by understanding the role of emerging irreversibilities in technological development.
and subsequently, a technological path could emerge. Emerging irreversibilities, therefore, are an indication and a driving force for the emergence of technological paths
i e. some stabilisation is taking place. A definition of emerging irreversibilities can be as follows: Emerging irreversibilities make it more difficult (or less easy) for actors to do something else (or easier to do something.
As a rule in emerging technologies, the stakes and the expectations are high for various actors. At the same time, the situation is very fluid,
what the technology will bring. Research institutes study a broad variety of scientific subjects and some results will be seen as promising and some not.
We will focus on two ingredients of technological change that are especially important in the early stages:(
The horizontal dimension distinguishes between different core areas of technological activity: basic research and research for market applications.
What are the results of private companies that contribute to the realization of the technology?
What are the results from (academic research groups that contribute to the realization of the technology?
Nanotechnology is a rising star in the set of new and emerging technologies. Many countries and firms feel the need to explore
The future of nanotechnology has become an important topic for technology firms, policy makers and research institutes.
Typically, when new technologies emerge, they are accompanied by promises of all sorts. Earlier examples are biotechnology, genomics and microelectronics,
for example, that the new technology will definitely change our lives. It is a so-called dgeneric technologyt 12
Nanotechnology is seen as an enabling technology, which means that it enables different industries to improve their products,
That is, conventional technologies are needed still as well to produce the product. Nanotechnology can for example, enable precise targeting of drugs (pharmaceuticals)
The intention is to commercialise this technology as soon as possible. In the hybrid solution the lower nanotube is replaced by a semiconducting structure created by common lithography techniques. 12 Then a layer of nanotubes is deposited
Nantero is developing NRAMK a high-density nonvolatile random access memory chip using nanotube technology. The company expects to deliver a product that will replace existing forms of memory, such as DRAM, SRAM and flash memory, with a high-density nonvolatile duniversal memoryt 18.
and launch a transparent global process for evaluating the socioeconnomic health and environmental implications of the technology.
pharmaceuticals, electronic devices, material production, energy technologies, etc. Concluding, the expectations on the societal level show a contradiction in the sense that on the one hand nanotubes are used without regulation
Cees Dekker's group 31 at the Delft University of Technology (Netherlands) turned a nanotube into a transistor (the basic building block of computer chips.
We already discussed how this technology works, as it is the subject of this case. Cientifica14 24 from a market perspective points out that,
During these few years Nantero received a rather extensive media attention (37 articles in total) from technology as well as business journals.
Third, the ETC group is working to develop an International Convention for the Evaluation of New technologies (ICENT),
This should create a new mechanism that will make it possible for the international community to monitor the development of new technologies whose introduction could affect (positively and/or negatively) human health
a processor based on nanotube transistors is impossible to produce. 3. 2. 3. Research group Restrictive factors in the development of technologies are repeating phenomena that end up on the agenda of research groups.
and production (making the technology ready for commercialisation). The last part was done in collaboration with ASML,
which led to the fact that the technology is compatible with existing lithography equipment 18.
but also improving the existing technology to achieve even higher densities of suspended crossbars, which leads to larger memories.
The fact that current semiconductor technology will reach the physical limits soon, gives a push on the market to come up with new solutions to continue the ongoing miniaturisation in the computer chip industry.
In the coming years Nantero aims at getting their product to the market and to improve the existing technology.
Later on, Nantero showed compatibility with existing lithography equipment as a next step in the realisation of a producible technology.
and the business community that the technology (or even nanotechnology) is actually possible of producing workable products for the electronic industry.
Second, sentiments at the societal level might influence the possibilities for the electronic industry to develop technologies that might receive negative publicity.
when a certain technology is received positively at the societal level. 4. Conclusions and discussion In this paper we proposed a route to deal with the intrinsic uncertainties of a new emerging field like nanotechnology.
insights in the fluidic situation and the dynamics of emerging technologies can be gained. Our attempt relates to the historical trend of technology assessment methods to incorporate
and exploit the actual technology dynamics 32. A brief historical digression is helpful at this point.
Technology assessment (TA) started in the late 1960s as an dearly warningt method 33, merely to inform parliaments about possible negative effects of new technologies.
In the early 1970s15 this more and more changed to a means for better policy analysis. During the 1980's, TA developed towards a policy instrument,
where TA is used to support policy-making. Nevertheless developments of TA were leading to different approaches in the United states compared to Europe.
In the late 1980s the notion of constructive technology assessment (CTA) became apparent in Europe. Many different types of CTA exist depending on the audience, phase of technological development, etc.
Nevertheless, the leading idea is to anticipate on societal aspects in an early stage of technological development to get better societal embedded technology 34.
By striving to play an active role in the 15 The first dedicated technology assessment organisation was the Office of Technology assessment (OTA)( founded in 1972.
The OTA was closely related to the United states congress, but ceased to exist in 1995. R. O. van Merkerk, H. van Lente/Technological forecasting & Social Change 72 (2005) 1094 1111 1108 development of dusefult applications of technology, CTA
indirectly aims at influencing the technology in development via the involved actors. We think the tracing of emerging irreversibilities is an important next step in the development of TA,
and especially in the light of constructive technology assessment. In general, CTA studies aim at assessing technological development in an active way
in order to maximise the societal embedding of the new technology. Our basic claim is that in order to appreciate and to influence developments in new emerging technologies,
an understanding of the early dynamics is necessary. As argued above, applying the proposed method helps to increase this understanding.
The same method, thus, will be useful as input for CTA studies in which the perspectives and actions of multiple heterogeneous actors are involved.
Understanding the dynamics from the different perspectives gives insight in the different points of view of the actors involved in the CTA study. 16 Finally,
we note that the emerging character of nanotechnology provides research opportunities for innovation and technology studies.
The prevailing type of study in journals and books on technology dynamics is a retrospective analysis. The drawbacks of a retrospective approach are well-known:
they tend to emphasize the dominant route that emerged as bwinnerq in the variation and selection process and,
thus, to ignore the deeply fluid character of new emerging technologies in their first stages 11.
To study nanotechnology while it is unfolding at this very moment gives the opportunity to observe (for example with the method proposed in this paper) the construction of the technology in a more symmetrical way.
To conclude, the method proposed in this paper appeared useful to organise the data and to structure it into a credible story.
These insights are valuable for understanding the dynamics of a particular technology and help to trace emerging irreversibilities in the early phases of technological development.
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of a CTA study (at least in some approaches) is the formulation of bsocio-technical scenariosq 35,
These views are directly related to the social perspectives on the new technology. As the set of involved actors is developed heterogeneous,
the results and insights that are gained by applying CTA tools in practice can be fed back into theories of technology dynamics.
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transistor based on a single carbon nanotube, Nature 393 (1998) 49 52.32 A. Rip, T. J. Misa, T. J.,J. Schot, Managing Technology
The Approach of Constructive technology assessment, Pinter Publishers, London, 1995.33 R. Smits, A. Leyten, Technology assessment, Waakhond of speurhond?
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R. O. van Merkerk, H. van Lente/Technological forecasting & Social Change 72 (2005) 1094 1111 1110 35 F. W. Geels, Towards sociotechnical scenarios
Using patterns and regularities in technology dynamics, in: K. H. Sørensen, R. Williams (Eds. Shaping technology, Guiding Policy:
Concepts, Spaces and Tools, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, 2002, pp. 359 385. Rutger van Merkerk is currently a Phd student (Copernicus Institute for Sustainability and Innovation, University of Utrecht,
The netherlands) working on Constructive technology assessment of emerging technologies and nanotechnology in particular. His research focuses on characterising emerging technologies and anticipating on prospective technological developments.
He holds MS degrees in Applied Physics with a specialisation in Materials Science, and Business administration with a specialisation in Small Business and Entrepreneurship, both from the University of Groningen, The netherlands.
In his Phd thesis he examines the dynamics of expectations in the development of technology.
Since then he has been involved in a wide range of studies in the area of technology, innovation and society.
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