Bücher der Reihe The Earthscan Science in Society Series

First Published in 2009. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A growing problem of interest in the field of science and technology policy is that the next generation of innovations is arriving at an accelerating rate, and the governance system is struggling to catch up. Current approaches and institutions for effective technology assessment are ill suited and poorly designed to proactively address the multidimensional, interconnected societal impacts of science and technology advancements that are already taking place and expected to continue over the course of the 21st century. This book offers tangible insights into the strategies deployed by well-known, high-profile organizations involved in anticipating the various societal and policy implications of nanotechnology and synthetic biology. It focuses predominantly on an examination of the practices adopted by the often-cited and uniquely positioned Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies in the United States, as well as being informed by comparisons with a range of institutions also interested in embedding forward-looking perspectives in their respective area of innovation. The book lays out one of the first actionable roadmaps that other interested stakeholders can follow when working toward institutionalizing anticipatory governance practices throughout the policymaking process.

First Published in 2010. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book provides a discussion of how to conduct climate politics by offering new perspectives on how social and political institutions are capable of responding to climate change.

This book examines the tensions between political authority and expert authority in the formation of public policy in liberal democracies.

This book explores the emerging perspectives and methodologies of STEM education and its relationship to cultural understanding of science and technology in international context.

The term "institutional response capacity" is a measurement for how effective political institutions may respond to threats and challenges such as climate change. This book provides a discussion of how to conduct climate politics by offering new perspectives on how social and political institutions are capable of responding to climate change.

This book examines how groups looking to plan and make decisions in any number of areas wade through the imperfect and often contradictory information they have to make fair, efficient, wise and well-informed choices. An emerging and very promising approach called joint fact-finding (JFF) can help. Rather than each stakeholder group marshalling the set of facts that best advance their respective interests and perspectives while discrediting the contradictory facts others provide, groups are challenged to collaboratively generate a shared set of facts that all parties accept. This book introduces readers to the theory of JFF, the value it can provide, and how they can adopt this approach in practice. It brings together writings from leading practitioners and scholars from around the world that are at the forefront of the JFF approach to science intensive policy making, urban planning, and environmental dispute resolution.

A growing problem of interest in the field of science and technology policy is that the next generation of innovations is arriving at an accelerating rate, and the governance system is struggling to catch up. Current approaches and institutions for effective technology assessment are ill suited and poorly designed to proactively address the multidimensional, interconnected societal impacts of science and technology advancements that are already taking place and expected to continue over the course of the 21st century. This book offers tangible insights into the strategies deployed by well-known, high-profile organizations involved in anticipating the various societal and policy implications of nanotechnology and synthetic biology. It focuses predominantly on an examination of the practices adopted by the often-cited and uniquely positioned Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies in the United States, as well as being informed by comparisons with a range of institutions also interested in embedding forward-looking perspectives in their respective area of innovation. The book lays out one of the first actionable roadmaps that other interested stakeholders can follow when working toward institutionalizing anticipatory governance practices throughout the policymaking process.

This book explores the emerging perspectives and methodologies of STEM education and its relationship to cultural understanding of science and technology in international context.

First Published in 2008. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The world is increasingly turbulent and complex, awash with disruptions, tipping points and knock-on effects exemplified by the implosion of financial markets and economies around the globe. This book explains how future orientation and, specifically, modern scenario techniques help to address these conditions.

First published in 2007

Since the mid 1990s, agricultural biotechnology - GM crops and foods - has been the focus of debate and conflict in many European countries. This title presents a series of comparative perspectives on the social, ethical and legal implications of genomics. It intends to capture lessons from the controversies of the 1990s.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has emerged rapidly as a crucial technological option for decarbonising electricity supply and mitigating climate change. Great hopes are being pinned on this new technology but it is also facing growing scepticism and criticism. This book is the first to bring together the full range of social and policy issues surrounding CCS shedding new light on this potentially vital technology and its future.  The book covers many crucial topics including the roles and positions that different publics, NGOs, industry, political parties and media are taking up; the way CCS is organised, supported and regulated; how CCS is being debated and judged; how innovation, demonstration and learning are occurring and being conceptualised and promoted; and the role of CCS in the transition to a low carbon energy future.  The authors draw on a variety of approaches, concepts, methods and themes and provide a new understanding of innovation in the energy and climate change fields. It tackles the many issues in a way that speaks to those concerned not only to understand these developments, but to those who are involved in the scientific and technological work itself, as well as those charged with evaluating and making decisions relevant to the future of the technology.

Scarcity is considered a ubiquitous feature of the human condition. It underpins much of modern economics and is widely used as an explanation for social organisation, social conflict and the resource crunch confronting humanity's survival on the planet. This title questions scarcity's taken-for-granted nature.

Places the question of human/animal relations at the heart of sustainability and climate change debates. This book focuses on ethics, examining critically the dominant paradigms of bioethics and power relations between human and non-human. It also considers animal biotechnology and political economy, examining commercialisation and regulation.

Explores how uncertainty is interpreted and used by policy makers, experts and politicians. This title argues that conventional notions of rational, evidence-based policy making - hailed by governments and organisations across the world as the only way to make good policy - is an impossible aim in highly complex and uncertain environments.

Examines the range of technological innovations offering lives that purport to be longer, stronger, smarter and happier, and asks whether their introduction is likely to lead to more fulfilled individuals and a fairer world.

This book examines the tensions between political authority and expert authority in the formation of public policy in liberal democracies. It aims to illustrate and better understand the nature of these tensions rather than argue specific ways of resolving them. Each chapter explores the complexity of interaction between the two forms of authority in different policy domains in order to reveal and clarify some common elements in the various ways political and expert authority interact in modern liberal democracies. The policy domains covered include climate geoengineering discourses; environmental health; biotechnology; nuclear power; whaling; and the use of force.

Focuses on the intractable conflict that characterises policy debate about messy issues. The author first develops a framework for analysing these conflicts and then applies the conceptual framework to four very different policy issues: the environment - focussing on climate change - as well as transport, ageing and health.

Offers a global overview of the state of nanotech and society in Europe, the USA, Japan and Canada, examining the ethics, the environmental and public health risks, and the governance and regulation of this most promising, and potentially most dangerous, of the various technologies.

Nanotechnology - technology at the molecular level - is held out by many as the Holy Grail for creating a trillion dollar economy and solving problems from curing cancer to reprocessing waste into products and building super fast computers. This title presents an overview of the state of nanotech and society in Europe, the USA, Japan and Canada.