The focus of the survey mentioned in the heading is on the US regulatory situation regarding nanotechnology and, interestingly, much of the work was done by researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC; Vancouver, Canada). A Dec. 19, 2013 news item on Nanowerk provides an overview,

In a survey of nanoscientists and engineers, nano-environmental health and safety scientists, and regulators, researchers at the UCSB Center for Nanotechnology in Society (CNS) and at the University of British Columbia found that those who perceive the risks posed by nanotechnology as “novel” are more likely to believe that regulators are unprepared. Representatives of regulatory bodies themselves felt most strongly that this was the case. “The people responsible for regulation are the most skeptical about their ability to regulate,” said CNS Director and co-author Barbara Herr Harthorn.

“The message is essentially,” said first author Christian Beaudrie of the Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia, “the more that risks are seen as new, the less trust survey respondents have in regulatory mechanisms. That is, regulators don’t have the tools to do the job adequately.”

The Dec. (?), 2013 University of California at Santa Barbara news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, adds this,

The authors also believe that when respondents suggested that more stakeholder groups need to share the responsibility of preparing for the potential consequences of nanotechnologies, this indicated a greater “perceived magnitude or complexity of the risk management challenge.” Therefore, they assert, not only are regulators unprepared, they need input from “a wide range of experts along the nanomaterial life cycle.” These include laboratory scientists, businesses, health and environmental groups (NGOs), and government agencies.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Expert Views on Regulatory Preparedness for Managing the Risks of Nanotechnologies by Christian E. H. Beaudrie, Terre Satterfield, Milind Kandlikar, Barbara H. Harthorn. PLOS [Public Library of Science] ONE Published: November 11, 2013 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0080250

All of the papers on PLOS ONE are open access.

I have taken a look at this paper and notice there will be a separate analysis of the Canadian scene produced at a later date. As for the US analysis, certainly this paper confirms any conjectures made based on my observations and intuitions about the situation given the expressed uneasiness from various groups and individuals about the regulatory situation.

I would have liked to have seen a critique of previous studies rather than a summary, as well as, a critique of the survey itself in its discussion/conclusion. I also would have liked to have seen an appendix with the survey questions listed in the order in which they were asked and seen qualitative research (one-on-one interviews) rather than 100% dependence on an email survey. That said, I was glad to see they reversed the meaning of some of the questions to doublecheck for someone who might indicate the same answers (e.g., 9 [very concerned]) throughout as a means of simplifying their participation,

Onward to the survey with an excerpt from the description of how it was conducted,

Subjects were contacted by email in a three-step process, including initial contact and two reminders at two-week intervals. Respondents received an ‘A’ or ‘B’ version of the survey at random, where the wording of several survey questions were modified to reverse the meaning of the question. Questions with alternate wording were reversed-coded during analysis to enable direct comparison of responses. Where appropriate the sequence of questions was also varied to minimize order effects.

Here’s how the researchers separated the experts into various groups (excerpted from the study),,

This study thus draws from a systematic sampling of US-based nano-scientists and engineers (NSE, n=114), nano-environmental health and safety scientists (NEHS, n=86), and regulatory decision makers and scientists (NREG, n=54), to characterize how well-prepared different experts think regulatory agencies are for the risk management of nanomaterials and applications. We tested the following hypothesis:

1. (1) Expert views on whether US federal agencies are sufficiently prepared for managing any risks posed by nanotechnologies will differ significantly across classes of experts (NSE vs. NEHS. vs. NREG).

…

This difference across experts was anticipated and so tested in reference to four additional hypotheses:

1. (2) Experts who see nanotechnologies as novel (i.e., as a new class of materials or objects) will view US federal regulatory agencies as unprepared for managing risks as compared to those who see nanotechnologies as not new (i.e., as little different from their bulk chemical form)
2. (3) Experts who deem US federal regulatory agencies as less trustworthy will also view agencies as less prepared compared to those with more trust in agencies
3. (4) Experts who attribute greater collective stakeholder responsibility (e.g. who view a range of stakeholders as equally responsible for managing risks) will see agencies as less prepared compared to those who attribute less responsibility.
4. (5) Experts who are more socially and economically conservative will see regulatory agencies as more prepared compared to those with a more liberal orientation.

The researchers included Index Variables of trust, responsibility, conservatism, novelty-risks, and novelty-benefits in relationship to education, gender, field of expertise, etc. for a regression analysis. In the discussion (or conclusion), the authors had this to say (excerpted from the study),

Consistent differences exist between expert groups in their views on agency preparedness to manage nanotechnology risks, yet all three groups perceive regulatory agencies as unprepared. What is most striking however is that NREG experts see regulatory agencies as considerably less prepared than do their NSE or NEHS counterparts. Taking a closer look, the drivers of experts’ concerns over regulator preparedness tell a more nuanced story. After accounting for other differences, the ‘expert group’ classification per se does not drive the observed differences in preparedness perceptions. Rather a substantial portion of this difference results from differing assessments of the perceived novelty of risks across expert groups. Of the remaining variables, trust in regulators is a small but significant driver, and our findings suggest a link between concerns over the novelty of nanomaterials and the adequacy of regulatory design. Experts’ views on stakeholder responsibility are not particularly surprising since greater reliance on a collective responsibility model would need the burden to move away exclusively from regulatory bodies to other groups, and result presumptively in a reduced sense of preparedness.

Experts’ reliance in part upon socio-political values indicates that personal values also play a minor role in preparedness judgments.

I look forward to seeing the Canadian analysis. The paper is worth reading for some of the more subtle analysis I did not include here.