Category Archives: economy

Nanotechnology in the developing world/global south

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Sometimes it’s called the ‘developing world’, sometimes it’s called the ‘global south’ and there have been other names before these. In any event, the organization, Nanotechnology for Development (Nano-dev) has released a policy brief about nanotechnology and emerging economies (?). Before discussing the brief, I have found a little information on the organization. From the Nano-dev home page,

Nanotechnology for development is a research project that aims at understanding how nanotechnology can contribute to development. By investigating way people deal with nanotechnology in Kenya, India and the Netherlands, the project will flesh out appropriate ways for governing nanotechnology for development.

Nanotechnology is a label for technologies at the nano-scale, roughly between 1 and 100 nanometers. This is extremely small. By comparison, the diameter of one human hair is about 60,000 nanometers. At this scale materials acquire all sorts of new characteristics that can be used in a wide range of novel applications. This potentially includes cheaper and more efficient technologies that can benefit the world’s poor, such as cheap water filters, efficient solar powered electricity, and portable diagnostic tests.

The four team members on the Nano-dev project are (from the Project Team page):

Pankaj Sekhsaria’s project seeks to understand the cultures of innovation in nanotechnology research in India, particularly in laboratories. He has a Bachelors Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Pune University in India and a MA in Mass Communication from the Jamia Milia Islamia in New Delhi, India.

Trust Saidi’s research is on travelling nanotechnologies. He studied BSc in Geography and Environmental Studies at Zimbabwe Open University, BSc Honours in Geography at University of Zimbabwe, MSc in Public Policy and Human Development at Maastricht Graduate School of Governance, Maastricht University.

Charity Urama’s project investigates the role of knowledge brokerage in nanotechnology for development. She obtained her BSc Botany from the faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Nigeria, Nsukka and MSc from the school of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Life sciences, University of Aberdeen (UK).

Koen Beumer focuses on the democratic risk governance of nanotechnologies for development. Koen Beumer studied Arts and Culture (BA) and Cultures of Arts, Science and Technology (MPhil, cum laude) at Maastricht University.

According to the April 4, 2012 news item on Nanowerk about the brief,

The key message of the policy brief is that nanotechnology can have both positive and negative consequences for countries in the global South. These should be pro-actively dealt with.

The positive consequences of nanotechnology include direct benefits in the form of solutions to the problems of the poor and indirect benefits in the form of economic growth. The negative consequences of nanotechnology include direct risks to human health and the environment and indirect risks such as a deepening of the global divide. Core challenges to harnessing nanotechnology for development include risk governance, cultures of innovation, knowledge brokerage and travelling technology.

What I found particularly interesting in the policy brief is the analysis of nanotechnology efforts in countries that are not usually mentioned  (from the policy brief),

There are large differences amongst countries in the global South. Some countries, like India, Egypt, Brazil and South Africa, have invested substantial sums of money through dedicated programs. Often these are large countries with emerging economies. Dedicated programs and strategies have been generated with strong political support.

In other countries in the global South things look different. Several African countries, like Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe have expressed their interest in nanotechnologies and some activities can indeed be observed. But generally this activity does not exceed the level of individual researchers and incidental funding. [p. 3]

In addition to the usual concerns expressed over human health, they mention this risk,

Furthermore, properties at the nano-scale may be used to imitate the properties of rare minerals, thus affecting the export rates of their main producers, usually countries in the global South. Nanotechnologies may thus have reverse effects on material demands and consequently on the export of raw materials by countries in the global South (Schummer 2007). [p. 3]

Interesting thought that nanotechnology research could pose a risk to the economic welfare of countries that rely on the export of raw materials. Canada, anyone? If you think about it, all the excitement over nanocellulose doesn’t have to be an economic boon for ‘forestry-based’ countries. If cellulose is the most abundant polymer on earth what’s stop other countries from using their own nanocellulose. After all, Brazilian researchers are working on nanocellulose fibres derived from pineapples and bananas (my Mar. 28, 2011 and June 16, 2011 postings).

One final thing from the April 4, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,

The NANO-DEV project is partnership of three research institutes led by Maastricht University, the Netherlands. Besides Maastricht University, it includes the University of Hyderabad (India) and the African Technology Policy Studies Network (Kenya).

Nanotechnology’s economic impacts and full lifecycle assessments

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A paper presented at the International Symposium on Assessing the Economic Impact of Nanotechnology, held March 27 – 28, 2012 in Washington, D.C advises that assessments of the economic impacts of nanotechnology need to be more inclusive. From the March 28, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,

“Nanotechnology promises to foster green and sustainable growth in many product and process areas,” said Shapira [Philip Shapira], a professor with Georgia Tech’s [US]  School of Public Policy and the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research at the Manchester Business School in the United Kingdom. “Although nanotechnology commercialization is still in its early phases, we need now to get a better sense of what markets will grow and how new nanotechnology products will impact sustainability. This includes balancing gains in efficiency and performance against the net energy, environmental, carbon and other costs associated with the production, use and end-of-life disposal or recycling of nanotechnology products.”

But because nanotechnology underlies many different industries, assessing and forecasting its impact won’t be easy. “Compared to information technology and biotechnology, for example, nanotechnology has more of the characteristics of a general technology such as the development of electric power,” said Youtie [Jan Youtie], director of policy research services at Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute. “That makes it difficult to analyze the value of products and processes that are enabled by the technology. We hope that our paper will provide background information and help frame the discussion about making those assessments.”

From the March 27, 2012 Georgia Institute of Technology news release,

For their paper, co-authors Shapira and Youtie examined a subset of green nanotechnologies that aim to enable sustainable energy, improve environmental quality, and provide healthy drinking water for areas of the world that now lack it. They argue that the lifecycle of nanotechnology products must be included in the assessment.

I was hoping for a bit more detail about how one would go about including nanotechnology-enabled products in this type of economic impact assessment but this is all I could find (from the news release),

In their paper, Youtie and Shapira cite several examples of green nanotechnology, discuss the potential impacts of the technology, and review forecasts that have been made. Examples of green nanotechnology they cite include:

  • Nano-enabled solar cells that use lower-cost organic materials, as opposed to current photovoltaic technologies that require rare materials such as platinum;
  • Nanogenerators that use piezoelectric materials such as zinc oxide nanowires to convert human movement into energy;
  • Energy storage applications in which nanotechnology materials improve existing batteries and nano-enabled fuel cells;
  • Thermal energy applications, such as nano-enabled insulation;
  • Fuel catalysis in which nanoparticles improve the production and refining of fuels and reduce emissions from automobiles;
  • Technologies used to provide safe drinking water through improved water treatment, desalination and reuse.

I checked both Philip Shapira‘s webpage and Jan Youtie‘s at Georgia Tech to find that neither lists this latest work, which hopefully includes additional detail. I’m hopeful there’ll be a document published in the proceedings for this symposium and access will be possible.

On another note, I did mention this symposium in my Jan. 27, 2012 posting where I speculated about the Canadian participation. I did get a response (March 5, 2012)  from Vanessa Clive, Nanotechnology File, Industry Sector, Industry Canada who kindly cleared up my confusion,

A colleague forwarded the extract from your blog below. Thank you for your interest in the OECD Working Party on Nanotechnology (WPN) work, and giving some additional public profile to its work is welcome. However, some correction is needed, please, to keep the record straight.

“It’s a lot to infer from a list of speakers but I’m going to do it anyway. Given that the only Canadian listed as an invited speaker for a prestigious (OECD/AAAS/NNI as hosts) symposium about nanotechnology’s economic impacts, is someone strongly associated with NCC, it would seem to confirm that Canadians do have an important R&D (research and development) lead in an area of international interest.

One thing about this symposium does surprise and that’s the absence of Vanessa Clive from Industry Canada. She co-authored the OECD’s 2010 report, The Impacts of Nanotechnology on Companies: Policy Insights from Case Studies and would seem a natural choice as one of the speakers on the economic impacts that nanotechnology might have in the future.”

I am a member of the organizing committee, on the OECD WPN side, for the Washington Symposium in March which will focus on the need and, in turn, options for development of metrics for evaluation of the economic impacts of nano. As committee member, I was actively involved in identifying potential Canadian speakers for agenda slots. Apart from the co-sponsors whose generosity made the event possible, countries were limited to one or two speakers in order to bring in experts from as many interested countries as possible. The second Canadian expert which we had invited to participate had to pull out, unfortunately.

Also, the OECD project on nano impacts on business was co-designed and co-led by me, another colleague here at the time, and our Swiss colleague, but the report itself was written by OECD staff.

I did send (March 5, 2012)  a followup email with more questions but I gather time was tight as I’ve not heard back.

In any event, I’m looking forward to hearing more about this symposium, however that occurs, in the coming weeks and months.

ArboraNano in Washington, DC for a two-day shindig on nanotechnology and economic impacts

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The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and the US National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) are hosting an  International Symposium on Assessing the Economic Impact of Nanotechnology, March 27 – 28, 2012 in Washington, D.C. Registration for the event opens Feb. 10, 2012 (first come, first served) and it appears to be a free event.

From the NNI’s event page, here’s some information about their objectives and who they’re inviting to attend,

The objective of the symposium is to systematically explore the need for and development of a methodology to assess the economic impact of nanotechnology across whole economies, factoring in many sectors and types of impact, including new and replacement products and materials, markets for raw materials, intermediate and final goods, and employment and other economic impacts.

Attendees are being invited from a broad spectrum of backgrounds and expertise, including technology leaders, key decision makers, economists, investors, policy analysts, scientists and engineers from industry, business, government, academia, and the general public.

They have close to 40 confirmed speakers for this event and, interestingly (for a Canadian and/or someone interested in nanocrystalline cellulose), one of them is Reinhold (Ron) Crotogino of ArboraNano.

Crotogino, network director, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of ArboraNano, the Canadian Forest NanoProducts Network, has extensive experience and education in the forest products industry. From a Feb. 10, 2011 news item in Pulp & Paper Canada,

Crotogino is a graduate of the University of British Columbia (B.A.Sc. 1966) and McGill University (Ph.D. 1971), both in chemical engineering. He worked with Voith for a few years after graduating, but spent much of his career as a researcher and research manager with Paprican (now FPInnovations). [emphasis mine]

For anyone not familiar with the nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) story in Canada, FPInnovations initiated and has been heavily involved in the development of NCC. (My Dec. 15, 2011 posting features one of my more recent stories about NCC in Canada.)

It’s a lot to infer from a list of speakers but I’m going to do it anyway. Given that the only Canadian listed as an invited speaker for a prestigious (OECD/AAAS/NNI as hosts) symposium about nanotechnology’s economic impacts, is someone strongly associated with NCC, it would seem to confirm that Canadians do have an important R&D (research and development) lead in an area of international interest.

One thing about this symposium does surprise and that’s the absence of Vanessa Clive from Industry Canada. She co-authored the OECD’s 2010 report, The Impacts of Nanotechnology on Companies: Policy Insights from Case Studies and would seem a natural choice as one of the speakers on the economic impacts that nanotechnology might have in the future.

ETA March 29, 2012: Vanessa Clive did contact me to clarify the situation and her response has been included in my March 29, 2012 follow up posting. (scroll down approximately 1/2 way)

For anyone who wants to see the agenda before committing, here’s the link. I did take a look,

Session One: Setting the Scene

This plenary session will introduce the conference themes, objectives and expected outputs. The session will provide an overview of the technologies and challenges that impact the assessment of the economic impact of nanotechnology and some indications of metrics being used

[break]

Session One con’t: Government Panel Discussion

This panel session will consider the issues raised in Session One, with a focus on the particularities of each country in addressing the challenges in assessing the economic impact of nanotechnology [emphasis mine]

I would have appreciated a little more detail such as which speakers will be leading which session and when they say “each country” exactly which countries do they mean? Oddly, no one involved with this event thought about phoning me to ask my opinion.

Cientifica’s report: Using Emerging Technologies to Address Global Risks

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Tim Harper, Hailing Yu, and Martin Jordonov of Cientifca (a global consulting company on nano and other emerging technologies) have released a new report, Using Emerging Technologies to Address Global Risks. A compact 28 pp, the report provides good context for understanding some of the difficult issues, overpopulation and environmental degradation, facing us. It’s also a well reasoned and thoughtful position paper on further developing emerging technologies with the aim of solving environmental problems. It is oriented to the business end of nanotechnology as becomes clear at about page 18.

I did raise my eyebrows when the authors claimed that despite the fact that the banking industry is “one of the most regulated and supervised sectors in the world of commerce” that economic chaos has occurred in an argument against ‘too’ many regulations for emerging technologies (1st para., p. 23).

This difference of opinion may lie in geography. From my perspective here in Canada, one of the major problems besetting the US economy, which affects Canadians greatly, was the financial chaos eventually caused by lifting of many of their banking regulations in the early 2000’s. Personally, I think there was an imbalance. No regulation and lack of oversight in some areas and far too much regulation and red tape in others. (I came across the US Sarbanes-Oxley requirements in a couple of articles I wrote on content management. I don’t remember much other than the requirements for tagging, managing, and tracking data were crushing and it was specific to financial services.)

However, I do agree with the authors that government agencies and policymakers do tend to view regulations as a solution to many of

life’s problems especially when something goes wrong and the attitude seems to be, the more regulation the better. Getting back to my original comment about regulatory balance, I wouldn’t assume despite the authors’ claims that because a few companies are good citizens (the authors list an example) that the majority will follow suit. Consequently, I think some regulations and oversight need to be in place.

As nanotechnology and life sciences are poised to be as influential as oil and chemicals were to the early 20th century, and the global population becomes interconnected in a way undreamt of by even the best science fiction writers, our relationship with technology will change at a rapid pace. The difficulty that both policy makers and the general public have with technology from a lack of knowledge and a lack of control. (p. 24)

I quite agree with the authors here but I don’t understand what they mean by control in light of their earlier assertions regarding regulations. They never really describe what they mean by control.

What I particularly appreciate in this report is the way the authors weave together some of the great issues facing us environmentally and economically while suggesting that it’s possible to remedy these situations.

(I wish I could quote one or two more passages from the report, unfortunately, the copy feature is locked, which means more typing or keyboarding.)

ETA Oct. 5, 2011: I want to commend the authors for their inclusion of the internet and social media and their impact on emerging technologies, business, and global risks in their discussion.

I find there’s a general tendency to view social media and the internet purely as a business opportunity, a means of fomenting social revolution, hurting brains, etc. on the one side. Or it’s simply ignored while discussions rage about environmental degradation, risks of emerging technologies, etc. I’m glad to see the authors have put the internet and social media (which are emerging technologies themselves) into the context of the discussion about other emerging technologies (nanotechnology, robots, synthetic biology, etc.) and global risks.

ETC group, nanotechnology and Africa

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There’s a lot of valuable information and insight along with an almost old-fashioned approach to the politics in the October 6, 2010 article, Big continent and tiny technology: Nanotechnology and Africa, by Kathy Jo Wetter of the ETC Group. The article is well written and researched. Here’s an excerpt from the its technical explanation of nanotechnology,

Nanotechnology is a suite of techniques used to manipulate matter on the scale of atoms and molecules. Nanotechnology speaks solely to scale: Nano refers to a measurement, not an object. A nanometre (nm) equals one-billionth of a metre. Ten atoms of hydrogen lined up side-by-side equal one nanometre. A DNA molecule is about 2.5nm wide (which makes DNA a nanoscale material). A red blood cell is enormous in comparison: about 5,000nm in diameter. Everything on the nanoscale is invisible to the unaided eye and even to all but the most powerful microscopes….

Key to understanding the potential of nanotech is that, at the nanoscale, a material’s properties can change dramatically; the changes are called ‘quantum effects’. With only a reduction in size (to around 300nm or smaller in at least one dimension) and no change in substance, materials can exhibit new characteristics – such as electrical conductivity, increased bioavailability, elasticity, greater strength or reactivity – properties that the very same substances may not exhibit at larger scales. For example, carbon in the form of graphite (like pencil ‘lead’) is soft and malleable; at the nanoscale carbon can be stronger than steel and is six times lighter; nanoscale copper is elastic at room temperature, able to stretch to 50 times its original length without breaking.

The point that some countries might choose to block the importation of nanomaterials due to issues around risk (as per the participants in a regional awareness-raising workshop in the Côte d’Ivoire) is well taken. From the article,

Here was a group of experts in Africa questioning the received wisdom of nanotechnology’s central role in solving the problems of the developing world, even going so far as to suggest that in some cases it may make sense to ‘say no to nano’.

I thought this next passage was particularly cogent,

Because nanoscale manipulations are now possible and, because the basic components of both living and non-living matter exist on the nanoscale (e.g., atoms, molecules and DNA), it is now possible to converge technologies to an unprecedented degree. Technological convergence, enabled by nanotechnology and its tools, can involve biology, biotechnology and synthetic biology, physics, material sciences, chemistry, cognitive sciences, informatics, geoengineering, electronics and robotics, among others. At the nanoscale there is no qualitative difference between living and non-living matter.

I first came across the statement about there being no appreciable gap between living and nonliving matter in a book about philosopher Alfred North Whitehead’s work, Process and Reality (which was written in the late 1920s). At the time, that statement affected my thinking profoundly and forced me to examine my assumptions about the boundaries between living and nonliving matter.

Getting back to the article, the section about market impact is interesting and problematic for me,

The most direct impact of new designer materials created using nanotechnology is multiple raw-material options for industrial manufacturers, which could mean major disruptions to traditional commodity markets. It is too early to predict with certainty which commodities or workers will be affected and how quickly. However, if a new nano-engineered material outperforms a conventional material and can be produced at a comparable cost, it is likely to replace the conventional commodity. History shows that there will be a push to replace commodities such as cotton and strategic minerals – both heavily sourced in Africa and critical export earners – with cheaper raw materials that can be sourced or manufactured by new processes closer to home.

Yes, if manufacturers can find a way to make their products cheaper, they will certainly do that regardless of whom may get hurt as Americans found out when production of various electronics products was outsourced to places where labour is cheaper. As for reliance on  commodities for export, Canadians know that story well.

What seems to have been ignored in Wetter’s article is the pressure to produce more closer to home for environmental reasons. It’s at this point that the article starts to lose credibility for me.

The section on Health and Environmental Aspects is carefully designed to evoke great concern while remaining nominally truthful,

While there is great uncertainty about the toxicity of nanoparticles, hundreds of published studies now exist that show manufactured nanoparticles, currently in widespread commercial use (including zinc, zinc oxide, silver and titanium dioxide) can be toxic.

Damning all uses of the nanoparticles (as named in the article) seems as helpful as announcing that peanuts,which are in widespread commercial use, can be toxic. Interestingly, the author does not mention the use of zinc oxide and/or titanium dioxide nanoparticles in sunscreens which have been given a cautious passing grade by the Environmental Working Group (EWG). (I last posted about nanosunscreens and the EWG, June 16, 2010.)

Yes, people should have concerns and more research on environmental and health impacts of nanomaterials and nanotechnology-enabled products is urgently needed but the article, unless very carefully read, could be deemed misleading with regard to health and environmental impacts.

The section I was specifically referring to when I described this article has having an old-fashioned approach to the politics comes at the end with, Who’s in Control?,

Many who envision nanotech bringing benefits to Africa ignore the realities of technology transfer and intellectual property. Intellectual property is being driven by the North and promotes the interests of dominant economic groups, both North and South. A 2006 study reported that Africa accounts for just 0.4 per cent of all patents granted throughout the world, while the United States and Europe together account for 81.8 per cent.

More than 12,000 patents in the field of nanotechnology have been awarded, granted over three decades (1976–2006) by the three offices responsible for most of the world’s nanotech patenting – the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO), the European Patent Office and the Japan Patent Office.[6] As of March 2010, close to 6,000 nanotech patents had been granted by the USPTO and a further 5,184 applications were waiting in the queue. Multinational corporations, universities and nanotech start-ups (primarily in the OECD countries) have secured ‘foundational patents’ on nanotech tools, materials and processes – that is, seminal inventions upon which later innovations are built – and nanotech ‘patent thickets’ are already causing concern in the US and Europe.

While I agree with much of the analysis, I think the author does not seem to be aware that China is quickly catching up (or has China already caught up?) to the US in terms of claiming patents for advances in science and technology.

The reference to North and South seems dated to me especially in light an alliance (as cited in the article itself) between India, Brazil and South Africa,

South Africa is also a player in a cooperative nanotech R&D programme under the India-Brazil-South Africa Dialogue Forum (IBSA). Nanotech is one area of science collaboration, led by India, funded by a US$3 million trilateral research pool.

The geopolitics are changing rapidly and couching the discussion about developing/emerging economies and nanotechnology in terms coined more than 30 years ago seems counterproductive. For anyone who’s interested, do read the article because there’s lots of good material but caution needs to be exercised.

Realism strikes nanotechnology market and employment forecasts

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There’s been a new kind of market forecast for nanotechnology kicking around lately. Instead of predicting market values in the trillions, the prediction is in the billions. There’s an item on Nanowerk about this new report,

It therefore is quite refreshing to finally see a market report titled “Nanotechnology: A Realistic Market Assessment” that estimates the worldwide sales revenues for nanotechnology to be $26 billion – yes, that’s illion with a b, not a tr – in 2015.

According to this report, the largest nanotechnology segments in 2009 were nanomaterials, with sales reaching $9 billion in 2009. This is expected to grow to more than $19 billion in 2015. Sales of nanotools, meanwhile, will experience high growth. From a total market revenue of $2.6 billion in 2009, the nanotools segment will increase at a 3.3% CAGR to reach a value of $6,812.5 million in 2015.

These numbers seem more realistic given the commentaries and critiques I’ve seen from more knowledgeable business analysts than me. (There’s more about the report and links to it and other related articles at Nanowerk.)

On the same track, I came across an August 10,2010 posting by Dexter Johnson (Nanoclast) on employment figures for the ‘nanotechnology industry’. From the posting ((Nanotech Employment Numbers Remain Inscrutable),

On the one hand, you have the ever-optimistic viewpoint of Mihail C. Roco, a senior adviser for nanotechnology at NSF [National Science Foundation], who helped develop the numbers back in 2000 that estimated that by 2015 2 million workers worldwide, and 800,000 in the US, would be needed to support nanotechnology manufacturing. According to Roco, we’re still on target with estimates that in 2008 there were 160,000 workers in nanotechnology, representing a 25% increase between 2000 and 2008. If that same percentage increase is applied to the years from 2008 to 2015, then you would get 800,000 by 2015 in Roco’s estimates.

As satisfying as it may be to be dead-on accurate with one’s projections, one cannot help be reminded of Upton Sinclair’s quote “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.” If you are given the task of predicting the unpredictable you have to stick to the methodology even when it hardly makes sense.

Dexter is providing commentary on an article by Ann M. Thayer in Chemical and Engineering News, Filling Nanotech Jobs. In the wake of the US National Nanotechnology Initiative’s (NNI) 10th anniversary this year, Thayer unpacks some of the numbers and projections about nanotechnology’s economic impacts. It is sobering. From the article,

Ten years down the road, and with 2015 just over the horizon, it’s clear that the hype has died down and investment momentum has slowed. Although U.S. government nanotech spending under NNI has totaled nearly $12 billion, according to market research firm Lux Research, the recession has further blunted demand for nanomaterials, slowed technology adoption, and reduced its market projections. Many small firms have closed their doors, and some state nanotech initiatives have stalled.

Beyond the likely effect of the economic downturn on employment, efforts to train a nanotech workforce face other uncertainties. The technology has moved into products and manufacturing, but it is still early in its commercial development path. And while it evolves, it must compete for government and investor attention from newer emerging technologies.

Much of the article focuses on educational efforts to support what was intended as a newly emerging and vibrant nanotechnology field. From Thayer’s article,

Reviews of NNI by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science & Technology and others have recommended improving coordination around education and workforce issues. Often near the top of the list is a call for increased participation by the Departments of Labor and Education, agencies new to NNI in 2006, to provide input and help strengthen efforts.

“This should be the next major step,” Roco agrees. “NSF has created a spectrum of methods and models in education, and now these need to be implemented at a larger scale.” He and others in government are counting on the Commerce Department to help assess industry needs and point universities in the right direction.

But the path forward is unclear, in part because the funding environment is in flux. For example, funding that jump-started some of the early nanotech centers, such as NCLT [National Center for Learning & Teaching], has ended, and the centers must recompete or find other ways to sustain their operations.

…

Education, like any business, responds to market needs. Murday [[James S. Murday, associate director in the University of Southern California’s Office of Research Advancement] supposes that nanoscience education could mirror the materials science field, which came together under government investment in the 1960s. “It’s sort of an existence proof in the past 50 years that you don’t have to be bound by the old disciplines,” Murday says. Instead of getting hung up on what nanotech is or isn’t, “maybe we ought to focus on what we really want, which is new products and figuring out how to design our educational system to make the fastest progress,” he suggests. [emphasis mine]

‘Designing an educational system to make the fastest progress’ as per Murday reeks of the Industrial Revolution. After all, the reason for near universal literacy was that industry in the name of progress needed better educated workers. But that’s a side issue.

What this whole discussion brings up is a question of strategy. The easiest comparison for me to make is between the US and Canada. As I’ve noted before (my Aug. 2, 2010 posting), the US has poured a lot money, time, and energy in a very focused nanotechnology strategy, e.g. NNI,  whereas in Canada, the nanotechnology effort has largely been rolled into pre-existing programs.

At this point, it’s impossible to say if there’s a clear cut right or wrong strategy, as Dexter points out, the people who made and continue to make the projections and decide strategy have a vested interested in being proved right.

NANO Magazine’s April 2010 issue country focus: Canada

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I’m a little late to the party but the month isn’t over yet so, today I’m going to focus on Nano Magazine‘s April 2010 issue or more specifically their article about Canada and it’s nanotechnology scene. The magazine (available both in print and online) has selected Canada for its country focus this issue. From the April 2010, issue no. 17 editorial,

The featured country in this issue is Canada, notable for its well funded facilities and research that is aggressively focused on industrial applications. Although having no unifying national nanotechnology initiative, there are many extremely well-funded organisations with world class facilities that are undertaking important nano-related research. Ten of these centres are highlighted, along with a new network that will research into innovative plastics and manufacturing processes, and added value can be gained in this field – with the economic future benefit for Canada firmly in mind!

It’s always an eye-opening experience to see yourself as others see you. I had no idea Canadian research was “aggressively focused on industrial applications.” My view as a Canadian who can only see it from the inside reveals a scattered landscape with a few pockets of concentrated effort. It’s very difficult to obtain a national perspective as communication from the various pockets is occasional, hard to understand and/or interpret at times, and not easily accessible (some of these Canadian nanotechnology groups (in government agencies, research facilities, civil society groups, etc.) seem downright secretive.

As for the ‘aggressive focus on industrial applications’ by Canadians, I found it interesting and an observation I could not have made for two reasons. The first I’ve already noted (difficulty of obtaining the appropriate perspective from the inside) and, secondly, it seems to me that the pursuit of industrial applications is a global obsession and not confined to the field of nanotechnology, as well, I’m not able to establish a basepoint for comparison so the comment was quite a revelation. Still, it should be noted that Nano Magazine itself seems to have a very strong bias towards commercialization and business interests.

The editorial comment about “not have a unifying national nanotechnology initiative” I can heartily second, although the phrase brings the US National Nanotechnology Initiative strongly to mind where I think a plan (any kind of plan) would do just as well.

The article written by Fraser Shand and titled Innovation finds new energy in Western Canada provides a bit of word play that only a Canadian or someone who knows the province of Alberta, which has substantive oil reserves albeit in the sands, would be able to appreciate. Kudos to whoever came up with the title. Very well done!

I have to admit to being a bit puzzled here as I’m not sure if Shand’s article is the sole article about the Canadian nanotechnology scene  (it profiles only the province of Alberta) or if there are other articles profiling pockets of nanotechnology research present, largely in Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia with smaller pockets in other provinces. I apologize for giving short shrift to six provinces but, as I’ve noted, information is difficult to come by and most of the information I can obtain is from the four provinces mentioned.

From the article,

Steeped in a pioneering spirit and enriched by ingenuity, one of the most exciting, modern day outposts on the nanotechnology frontier is located on the prairies of Western Canada. The province of Alberta is home to some of Canada’s most significant nanotechnology assets and has quickly become a world-destination for nanotechnology research, product development and commercialization.

While Alberta is rooted in the traditional resource sectors of energy, agriculture and forestry, it is dedicated to innovation. The Government of Alberta launched its nanotechnology strategy in 2007, committing $130 million to growth and development over five years. It also created a dedicated team.

Shand goes on to note Canada’s National Institute of Nanotechnology (NINT), located in Edmonton, Alberta’s capital city, and its role in attracting world class researchers (see News Flash below). Other than the brief mention of a federal institution, the focus remains unrelentingly on Alberta and this is surprising since the title misled me into believing that the article would concern itself with Western Canada, which arguably includes the prairie provinces (Manitoba and Saskatchewan) and British Columbia.

Meanwhile, the editorial led me to believe that I would find a national perspective with mention of 10 research centres somewhere in the April 2010 issue. If they are hiding part of the issue, I wish they’d note that somewhere easily visible (front page?) on their website and clarify the situation.

If this is the magazine’s full profile of the Canadian nanotechnology scene, they’ve either come to the conclusion that the only worthwhile work is being done in Alberta (I’m making an inference) or they found the process of gathering information about the other nanotechnology research pockets so onerous that they simply ignored them in favour of pulling a coherent article together.

I have been viewing the site on a regular basis since I heard about the April 2010 issue and this is the only time I’ve seen an article about Canada made available. They seem to have a policy of rotating the articles they make available for free access.

One other thing, a Nanotechnology Asset Map of Alberta is going to be fully accessible sometime in May 2010. I gather some of the folks from the now defunct, Nanotech BC organization advised the folks at nanoAlberta on developing the tool after the successful BC Nanotechnology Asset Map was printed in 2008 (?). I’m pleased to see the Alberta map is online which will make updating a much easier task and it gives a very handy visual representation that is difficult to achieve with print. You can see Alberta’s beta version at nanoAlberta. Scroll down and look to the left of the screen and at the sidebar for a link to the asset map.

I have to give props to the people in the province of Alberta who have supported nanotechnology research and commercialization efforts tirelessly. They enticed the federal government into building NINT in Edmonton by offering to pay a substantive percentage of the costs and have since created several centres for commercialization and additional research as noted in Shand’s article. Bravo!

News Flash: I just (in the last five minutes, i.e., 11:05 am PT) received this notice about the University of Alberta and nanotechnology. From the Eureka Alert notice,

A University of Alberta-led research team has taken a major step forward in understanding how T cells are activated in the course of an immune response by combining nanotechnology and cell biology. T cells are the all important trigger that starts the human body’s response to infection.

Christopher Cairo and his team are studying how one critical trigger for the body’s T cell response is switched on. Cairo looked at the molecule known as CD45 and its function in T cells. The activation of CD45 is part of a chain of events that allows the body to produce T cells that target an infection and, just as importantly, shut down overactive T cells that could lead to damage.

Cairo and crew are working on a national/international team that includes: “mathematician Dan Coombs (University of British Columbia), biochemist Jon Morrow (Yale University Medical School) and biophysicist David Golan (Harvard Medical School).” Their paper is being published in the April issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Now back to my regular programming: I should also mention Nano Québec which I believe was the first provincial organization founded  in Canada, circa 2005, to support nanotechnology research and commercialization efforts. French language site / English language site

NaNO Ontario has recently organized itself as the Nanotechnology Network of Ontario.

Unfortunately, Nanotech BC no longer exists.

If you know of any other provincial nanotechnology organizations, please do let me know.