Nanochannels, last mentioned in my Jan. 27, 2011 posting, is a Europe-wide public engagement project. Announced in mid-January 2011, Nanochannels has now created a multi-language set of surveys for its first public engagement exercise. From the June 13, 2011 news item on Nanowerk,

In one of the biggest nano-related public engagement exercises ever implemented, the Institute of Nanotechnology has now published online surveys in seven languages and is launching focus groups as part of the EC-funded NANOCHANNELS project. The project partners convened in a two-day intensive workshop at EuroNanoForum 2011, Budapest, to plan the next stages of a dynamic programme of communication, dialogue, and engagement in issues of nanotechnology (NT) aimed at European citizens.

…

Speaking at the NanoChannels workshop at EuroNanoForum 2011, Mark Morrison, CEO of the Institute of Nanotechnology, said: ‘This is one of the largest projects ever to examine the issues faced by all sectors of the wider public through specially designed tools of engagement. Not only will the project enable us to gauge public opinion, it will also inform us of the tools that prove to be the most effective for communication within specific sectors. These dialogue tools can then be adopted to help build public consensus on advanced technologies and inform European Union policy.’

You can participate by filling out a short survey,

English: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NanoChannels_EN

French: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NanoChannels_FR

German: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NanoChannels_DE

Hebrew: http://bit.ly/nanosurvey

Italian: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NanoChannels_IT

Romanian: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NanoChannels_RO

Spanish: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NanoChannels_ES

Alternatively, make your opinion heard through the mini poll on The Guardian newspaper’s microsite: http://www.guardian.co.uk/nanotechnology-world

I wonder why they don’t mention the Nanologue, a European Union nanotechnology public engagement project completed in 2004. It seems logical to build on work that was done previously unless institutional memory has failed and work is being started from the beginning, again. ETA June 15, 2011: Nanoclast blogger, Dexter Johnson provides more insight into the relationship between Nanochannels and other European nanotechnology public engagement exercises in his June 15, 2011 posting,

Since I was in the meeting at EuroNanoForum in which the outreach program [Nanochannels] was discussed, I can confirm that a dreary recap was provided of the Nanologue project. The extent to which this data informed the new project was hard to discern from the near-comatose expression on the face of the audience.

But moving on, in addition to Nanologue there was ObservatoryNANO that was supposed to inform government, industry and finance decision makers about issues pertaining to nanotechnology and in doing so often provided unintended guffaws.

Dexter goes on to provide more context to this current Nanochannels outreach project and a brief comment about current US public consultation efforts.