Tag Archives: Didier Laval

Nanopinion in France and elsewhere in Europe

Anne Fleischman has written a July 3, 2013 article (Pluie de science; Avis d’inexpert) for Québec’s Agence Science-Presse that focuses on the European nanotechnology dialogue project, Nanopinion and its efforts in France and elsewhere in Europe. I last mentioned Nanopinion in an April 23, 2013 posting concerning their sponsored initiative (combined advertising and editorial content?)  in the UK’s Guardian newspaper,

Small World, a nanotechnology blog, was launched today (Tuesday, Apr. 23, 2013)  on the UK’s Guardian newspaper science blogs network. Here’s more from the Introductory page,

Small World is a blog about new developments in nanotechnology funded by Nanopinion, a European Commission project. All the posts are commissioned by the Guardian, which has complete editorial control over the blog’s contents. The views expressed are those of the authors and not the EC

This summer (2013), Nanopinion will be polling the French and other Europeans regarding their opinion on nanotechnology. From Fleischman’s article (although I will provide a bit of translation, it might be best if you have some French language skills),

Cet été, un peu partout en Europe, on sonde l’opinion du public sur les nanotechnologies. Les gens n’y connaissent rien? Peut-être, mais ils ont certainement quelque chose à en dire.

Avec le projet NANOPINION, l’Europe prend le taureau par les cornes: au lieu d’attendre qu’un éventuel scandale sanitaire vienne éclabousser l’industrie tout en traumatisant les esprits au sujet de ces si mystérieuses nanotechnologies, onze Européens ont décidé de sonder l’opinion publique. Le but: faire remonter les impressions à chaud des populations.

«On ne prétend pas demander à quiconque de se forger une opinion définitive en cinq minutes. Il s’agit de tâter le pouls des gens et de leur faire prendre conscience que, même s’ils n’y connaissent pas grand-chose a priori, ils ont quand même le droit d’avoir un avis», explique Didier Laval, chargé de mission au Réseau des Musées et Centres de science européens, ECSITE, l’un des porteurs du projet.

L’idée: pas la peine d’avoir un doctorat en physique pour avoir voix au chapitre. Une approche qui ouvre la porte à une autre manière d’appréhender la culture scientifique. «Comment motiver des gens à participer à un débat public s’ils sont convaincus qu’ils sont trop ignorants pour le faire? Avec NANOPINION, on veut leur prouver qu’avec très peu d’information de base au départ, ils peuvent quand même se forger une première impression sur un sujet qui les concerne directement même s’ils n’en ont pas conscience», explique Didier Laval.

“Taking the bull by the horns,” Nanopinion will be surveying public opinion in a special way. While it’s not possible to turn people into experts in five minutes, it is possible for people to formulate and express some generalized opinions. (This approach sounds like it’s  based on some ideas that came out of work by Dan Kahan and other researchers at the Yale Law School’s Cultural Cognition Project and which I mentioned in a Dec. 9, 2008 posting. The Cultural Cognition Project researchers suggested that a lot of our opinions arise from preexisting cultural values, which we will apply to new technologies.)

Getting back to the translation, Laval and his team want to convince people that they can participate in public dialogues and surveys concerning nanotechnology even if they don’t have a PhD. in physics.

I gather that during the summer, Nanopinion will be popping up everywhere (in the downtown areas of various cities, at music festivals , and elsewhere) with their multimedia stations and friendly folks encouraging the public to participate in a five minute survey. I wonder if they’ve designed the survey to seem like a game. As for popping up at music festivals, that seems to have been a successful science outreach strategy for Guerilla Science, which made an appearance at the 2011 Glastonbury Music Festival (as per my July 12, 2011 posting).

In any event, this seems to be another public dialogue/engagement/survey project as prophylactic treatment. From the Fleischman article,

Il est peu probable que le NANOPINION puisse à lui tout seul mettre un gouvernement à l’abri d’un scandale de type Amiante ou Vache folle si, un jour, un grave dérapage se produisait dans l’industrie des nanotechnologies. Cependant, le projet témoigne d’une volonté de l’Europe d’être davantage à l’écoute de ses citoyens en matière de recherche scientifique : un nouveau paradigme dans les rapports entre la science et la société.

My translation (such as it is): It is highly unlikely that Nonopinion alone can shelter government from nanotechnology scandals similar to the Amiante (?) and ‘mad cow disease’ scandals. Essentially, the existence of this project, Nanopinion, is proof of Europe’s desire to listen to its citizens regarding their opinions on scientific research and its desire to create a new paradigm for science and its relations to society.

Interestingly, it was approximately three years ago that public dialogues about nanotechnology scheduled in various cities in France were either cancelled or abruptly ended as per my Feb. 28, 2010 posting and my March 10, 2010 posting.