Nano: Governance Through Dialogue (NanoTrust Dossier No. 038en – May 2013)

In the last years, dialogues have become increasingly important for politics and science as well as scientific communication. More and more, they serve as an important feature for the responsible handling of nanotechnology at the national and European level. German speaking states have therefore laid emphasis on dialogues as a tool for communication and information in their nanotechnology action plans. The projects described in the following were largely initiated by the respective authorities as implementation measures of the national nanotechnology action plans. With the exception of the information meetings, these measures in general took place between experts and decision makers in camera. For example, with regard to Austria the experts’ group Nanotechnologie-Informations-Plattform is described. Very seldom have decision makers initiated any public dialogues. One unique dialogue process with citizens is described, namely publifocus events in Switzerland, where the results had a direct influence on policy development. In addition to those dialogues which contributed to the national political process, occasionally also smaller dialogue events took place in the context of research projects, for example the focus groups in Germany and Austria of the project NanoSafety for the EU Parliament.