S.NET once stood for Society for the Study of Nanoscience and Emerging Technologies and then the name started changing with the most recent being, Society of the Studies of New and Emerging Technologies. As I noted in my 2017 end-of-year comments (Dec. 30, 2017 posting), the nano blogosphere is also shifting as nanotechnology is being absorbed into and enables other scientific and technical efforts.
S.NET is celebrating its 10th year at their annual meeting, which will be held in Maastricht (Netherlands). Here’s their call for papers,
2018 Annual S.NET Meeting
Image: Geert Budenaerts, Wikimedia
CALL for PAPERS.
The 10th annual S.NET meeting will take place June 25-27, 2018 at the Faculty of Arts and Social Science, Maastricht University, The Netherlands. The theme is Anticipatory Technologies: Data and Disorientation.
Invitation
S.NET invites contributions to the tenth annual meeting of The Society for the Study of New and Emerging Technologies (S.NET), to be held at Maastricht University, the Netherlands, on June 25 – 27, 2018. The three-day conference will assemble scholars, practitioners and policy makers from around the world interested in the development and implications of emerging technologies.
About S.NET
S.NET is an international association that promotes intellectual exchange and critical inquiry about the advancement of new and emerging technologies in society. The aim of the association is to advance critical reflection from various perspectives on developments in a broad range of new and emerging fields, including, but not limited to, nanoscale science and engineering, biotechnology, synthetic biology, cognitive science, ICT and Big Data, and geo-engineering. Current S.NET board members are: Michael Bennett (chair), Marianne Boenink, Ana Delgado, Clare Shelley-Egan, Chris Toumey, Poonam Pandey, Christopher Coenen, Colin Milburn, Kornelia Konrad, Nora Vaage, Maria Belen Albornoz, and Ryan LaBar.
Conference Theme: Anticipatory technologies – data and disorientation
Any effort on new and emerging technologies unavoidably deals with the non-existing and the speculative. The future is permanently mobilized to promote decisions and policies regarding the science, technology and society nexus. Anticipatory technologies like predictive policing and preventive medicine promise to give us better epistemic access and practical control over the future. The basic irony, however, is that anticipatory technologies do not only increase data but also disorientation. Is the disorientation vis-á-vis the future in spite of the astonishing growth of data, or can it be a result of that growth? Does the growing control over future events in terms of risk make people more acutely aware of what they don’t control? Contributions are invited that explore existing ways in which the future is mobilized, technologically mediated, and economically exploited; that map the manifold ways it is contested both in discourse and in action; and that reflect on the extent to which new technologies ironically undermine our faith in the future.
Key note speakers
Prof Cyrus Mody is an historian of recent science and technology and has published on the history of nanotechnology and micro-electronics. He studies the commercialization of academic research, countercultural science and technology, and the longue durée of responsible research and innovation. He worked at Rice University, Texas, the NSF Center for Nanotechnology in Society and now has a chair at Maastricht University.
Prof Marjolein van Asselthas a strong profile on governance, risk and uncertainty in both academic and policy circles. Currently she is member of the Dutch Safety Board and was a member of the Scientific Council for Government Policy for many years. She has a Governance chair at Maastricht University.
Third key note speaker to be announced.
Themes, topics and conference strands for the 10th Annual Meeting
S.NET encompasses communities, perspectives, and methodologies from across the social sciences, humanities and natural sciences, and welcomes contributions from technology developers and other practitioners. The program committee invites contributions from the full breadth of disciplines, methodologies, and perspectives, as well as from applied, participatory, and practical approaches to studying these emerging fields. Regionally or internationally comparative perspectives are especially welcome. Possible themes and topics have been organized into one overarching conference theme and six ‘strands’. While applicants are asked to indicate the strand relevant to the topic of their paper, submissions dealing with themes or topics outside the present strands are also welcome.
R&D practices and the dynamics of new and emerging sciences and technologies
Research networks & collaborations, ways of organizing research & development, emerging research fields, practices of ‘doing’ new and emerging fields of science and technology, including historical and philosophical studies of these practices.
Innovation and the use of new and emerging sciences and technologies
Innovation networks and systems, commercialization, implications for industry structures, translation from lab to practice, application and use of products and other innovations, critical analyses of growth and consumption, including economic, social and cultural approaches of innovation processes.
Governance of newly emerging sciences and technologies
Regulations, anticipatory governance practices, risk assessment, risk concerns, (constructive) TA, forms of public participation and engagement, including critical evaluation of forms of governance.
Visions and cultural imaginaries of newly emerging sciences and technologies
Promises, expectations, visions, science fiction, imagination, socio – technical change, moral change, role of media, including assessments of such visions and analyses of their role in innovation processes.
Publics and their relations to newly emerging science s and technologies
Science communication, risk communication, public engagement, participation and discourses on NEST, science museums, informal science learning initiatives, including critical evaluation of such initiatives and the notion of ‘publics’.
Politics and ethics of new and emerging sciences and technologies
Responsible innovation, (in)equality, equity, development, global and social distribution of benefits and risks, sustainability, ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ impacts of emerging technologies, including theoretical perspectives on NEST and global developments.
How to apply
S.NET encourages proposals for individual papers, posters, traditional panels, roundtable discussions and other innovative formats. Abstracts should be approximately 250 words in length. Proposals for panel sessions should include a general introduction and abstracts of the separate contributions. Proposals should include the theme or strand to which the abstract/panel session is submitted. If an abstract fits more strands, or does not fit the existing strands, simply note that in your submission. The deadline for abstract submissions is March 2, 2018; send your abstract in PDF form to 2018snet@gmail.com. All submitters will be notified about the results of the review process by the end of April 2018. Details of the submission process are available online: www.maastrichtsts.nl/snet.
The local organizing committee
Tsjalling Swierstra, Harro van Lente, Nora Vaage, Conor Douglas, Danielle Shanley, Darian Meacham, Cindy van Montfoort, Jacqueline Graff.
Location
Maastricht is an ancient Roman city of some 120.000 inhabitants in the south of The Netherlands and has a beautiful medieval inner-city. Generally known as the venue of the Treaty of Maastricht, it has a distinctly international orientation. Maastricht can easily be reached by plane, train and car. Maastricht University is internationally oriented; its students come from all over the world. The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASoS) is located in the centre of Maastricht.
The fifth annual meeting of S.NET, the Society for the Study of Nanoscience and Emerging Technologies (the call for proposals was featured in my Mar. 6, 2013 posting), is being held Oct. 27 – 29, 2013 at Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts.
I found a draft copy of the meeting’s programme here, The 2013 Theme is: Innovation, Responsibility, and Sustainable Development, I see the plenary speaker for the meeting’s opening session on Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013 from 6 pm to 7:30 pm is Dr. Andrew Maynard,Director of the University of Michigan Risk Science Center (formerly Chief Science Advisor for the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies hosted by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,e etc). He will be speaking on the theme of Technology Innovation and the New Social Responsibility.
The next two days (Oct. 28 – 29, 2013) look to be packed and here’s sampling of what attendees can expect (Note: I’ve had to reformat this material dramatically),
Innovating for Personalised Medicine (8:30 – 10 am, Oct. 28. 2013)
Federica Lucivero, University of Tilburg;
Marianne Boenink, University of Twente Living up to the P of promises: Innovation for 4P medicine
Christopher Groves, Cardiff University Reifying uncertainty: personalised medicine and the somatic ethics of genomic risk
Effy Vayena, University of Zurich The Swiss debate about personal genomics: reluctant engagement.
A Matter of Trust: Perceptions of Nanotechnology Risk and Responsibility (8:30 – 10 am, Oct. 28, 2013)
Cassandra Engeman & Barbara
Herr Harthorn UC Santa Barbara Mobilizing in the Context of Uncertainty: Social Movement Organizations and Contentious Issues of Nanotechnology Safety, Governance, and Responsible Development
Michael Cacciatore, UC Santa
Barbara Explaining Attitudes Toward Nanotechnology: The Interaction Between Risk Perceptions And Regulatory
Robert DeLeo, Bentley University Trust On Public Support Issue Framing, Risk Perception, and Venue Shopping: Siting the Boston Univeristy Infectious Disease Laboratory
Visioning the Future (8:30 – 10 am, Oct. 28, 2013)
Nora Vaage, University of Bergen Future Visions, Scenarios and Predictions: The Myths of What May Be
Norah Campbell, Trinity College
Dublin; Cormac Deane, Dun
Laoghaire Institute; Padraig
Murphy, Dublin City University Nanotechnology in Advertising: Imagining the Invisible
Michael Burnam-Fink, Arizona
State U. Eventuality: A Narrative (Nano) Foresight Engine
Next Generation Nanotech Innovation and Economic Development (13:45 – 15:15 Oct. 28, 2013)
Stacey Frederick, Duke U. Method and Platform for Identifying Stakeholders in the Nanotechnology Economy
Jan Youtie, Georgia Institute of
Technology; Philip Shapira,
Georgia Tech / U. Manchester;
Arho Suominen, VTT Technical
Research Centre; Yin Li, Georgia
Tech Re-assessing the Promise of Nanotechnology: A Bibliometric Analysis of Next Generation Complex Engineered Nanomaterials
Benjamin Schrempf, European
Academy of Tech. Assessment General purpose knowledge and innovation networks – an agent-based simulation approach
Richard Appelbaum, Matt Gebbie,
Xueying Han, Galen Stocking,
U.C. Santa Barbara A Global Nanotech Education: A Trend Analysis of Chinese S&T Students in the United States
Wendell Wallach, Yale U. Towards a Comprehensive Approach for Governing Emerging Technologies
Victoria Sutton, Texas Tech U. Regulation and Litigation of the Future – A Model for Considering the Unknown
Robin Pierce, Delft Univ. Governing Sustainable Transitions: When issues fly below the public radar
Film and Discussion – Scenarios of the Nano-enhanced City (16:00 – 17:00 Oct. 28, 2013)
Rider Foley, Michael Bernstein
Ira Bennett, Arnim Wiek, and
David Guston, Arizona State U. Film: PHX 2050
Kathryn de Ridder-Vignone,
Arizona State Univ. *The Futurescape City Tours: Material Deliberation as Public Engagement
Renata Hejduk and Darren
Petrucci, Arizona State U. Nano and the City: A Hyper-collaborative Design Studio Environment Exploring Future Scenarios on the Impact of Nanotechnologies upon the City of Phoenix in the mid 21st Century.
*Policy and Nanotechnology Development in Brazil (8:30 – 10:00 am, Oct. 29, 2013)
Clecí Körbes and Noela
Invernizzi, Federal U. of Parana Science Communication on Nanotechnology in Brazilian Media
Noela Invernizzi, Federal U. of
Parana Nanotechnology Problem-oriented Research in Brazil
Paulo Roberto Martins, Brazilian
Research Network in Nano,
Society, and Environment Science for Production x Science for Impacts: Brazilian Development of Nanotechnology in Section XXI
The Future Agenda for Sustainable Development (16:00 – 17:30, Oct. 29, 2013)
Julia Silvia Guivant, Federal U. of
Santa Catarina Certification of GMOs and non-GMOs: the implications of the search for sustainability and responsible technological innovation
*Gregor Wolbring, U. of Calgary Analysis of the linkage between science and technology advancements and sustainable development goals: Introducing Eco-ableism as a conceptual framework
Louis-Etienne Pigeon, U. Laval Nanotechnologies and the Land Ethic in the context of sustainable development: what progress? which objective?
Rodrigo Cortes-Lobos, Univ. de
Talca A decade of the US Public Research Agenda in Agrifood Nanotechnology: It is ready to Contribute toward a more Sustainable Development?
etc.
I have starred (*) a few items. The first being, *The Futurescape City Tours: Material Deliberation as Public Engagement in the Film and Discussion session on Oct. 28, 2013. This is a public engagement programme which seems to have been developed at Arizona State University and is currently being imported into other jurisdictions including Edmonton, Alberta as per the Nanotechnology and the Community project at the University of Alberta,
2) Futurescape Cities Tour (October – November 2013) – A series of engagements and walking tours that encourage public participants to explore innovation and nanotechnology in relation to the city. These tours promote communication between publics, scientists, and business leaders as a means of jointly considering innovation and development plans in relation to desirable visions of the future of the City. In collaboration with research teams in the US, these tours will coincide with similar events being planned in Phoenix AR, St. Paul MN, Portland OR, Durham NC, Springfield MA, and Washington DC.
The second starred session is *Policy and Nanotechnology Development in Brazil and that’s because the Brazilian congress just voted down a motion to regulate nanotechnology as per a Sept. 9, 2013 news item on SciDevNet (Note: Links have been removed).
The Brazilian Congress has rejected a bill that aimed to introduce labelling on all food, drugs and cosmetics containing nanostructures, arguing that it was alarmist and that there was no scientific basis for warning people about nanotechnology in products.
The move is the latest rebuff to such regulation, even as the country spearheads multimillion-dollar nanotechnology programmes and experts argue that better oversight of this new technology could benefit both industry and consumers.
A Senate report on the rejected bill said that the proposed labelling could have been interpreted as a “warning” even on products improved by nanotechnology, potentially causing losses to companies that have invested in improving their products through this technology.
Consequently, there could be a fall in research and development investment in the sector, which would undermine national investment into nanotechnology such as the National Nanotechnology Programme, a multimillion-dollar initiative launched in 2005, and its extension the Brazilian Nanotechnology Initiative launched last month (19 August) that is worth 440 million reals (approximately US$186 million) by the end of 2014.
The bill’s demise marks the second failure to regulate the fast-growing sector: in 2005, a more ambitious bill, with provisions for a national policy on nanotechnology, including labelling, risk assessment and other decisions, was evaluated by the industry, science, and finance committees from Congress’s Chamber of Deputies, which found the field to be at too early a stage for legislation.
*The third and last session I’ve starred is Gregor Wolbring’s (University of Calgary) Analysis of the linkage between science and technology advancements and sustainable development goals: Introducing Eco-ableism as a conceptual framework I have mentioned Gregor a number of times here in the context of human enhancement, most recently in a Jan. 30, 2013 posting. As his session integrates his concept of ableism and sustainability there is a description of ableism in my August 30, 2011 posting and of course, there’s always Gregor’s blog or you can check Gregor’s academic page for more information about ableism.
