1. © European Communities, 2011 Nanotechnology as an empirical case study This poster explores - as an empirical case study - the interaction between Future Technology Analysis (FTA) and the emergence and development of nanotechnology S&T policy and its institutional outcomes in Germany. Within this context, FTA is understood both as a network of institutions and a set of methods applied. (Nanosciences and) Nanotechnologies (N&N) are often described as an enabling technology, a general platform technology with a disruptive potential for many areas of application. The connection of N&N endeavours to actual applications and demands therefore often is not immediately obvious. FTA has, intentionally or as a side effect of other activities, contributed to the translation of N&N into focused research programmes and vice versa. FTA and the shaping of nanotechnology policy The role of FTA in shaping N&N policies can be explored by using Garud and Ahlstrom’s model of ‘innovation as an enacting-selecting game’ as an analytical framework. Here, innovation is understood as a result of a socio- cognitive ‘game’ that is played between actors that enable technological development (‘enactors’) and actors that select technologies and organizational changes they assume being best at meeting their requirements (‘selectors’). It can be shown that FTA has contributed, through its institutions and methods, to a number of developments in German N&N policy: The results of early foresight studies have been used by funding ministries (as ‘selectors’) and research organisations (as ‘enactors’) to develop and justify N&N research programmes. Early technology assessment studies have helped to put the debate on Drexlerian nanotechnology into perspective and at the same time refocused the impact debate on potential EHS risks of (new) nanomaterials. The call for identifying economic benefits of N&N and research into it, partly performed by the FTA community, have support a shift from the broad ‘endless innovation’ narrative towards a more focused application orientation of N&N funding. In the ongoing debate on managing (potential) EHS risks of nanomaterials, FTA has supported industry (as ‘enactors’) in finding ways towards responsible innovation as well as governmental actors (as ‘selectors’) in developing strategies for adequate risk governance. FTA has strengthened the ‘green nano’ narrative and supported its framing. NOTES 1.Poster Title Replace the mock-up text of the poster title (”Joint Research Centre”) with the text of your own title. Keep the original font colour (100c 80m 0y 0k). Keep the flush-right justification. 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Place your illustrations (pictures, graphs, etc.) within the boundaries of the two main-text boxes. Adjust your text-flow as needed. 4.Contact Box Replace the mock-up contents of the contact box with your own data. Keep the contact box in place if possible. Place it elsewhere only if unavoidable for layout reasons, but in that case try, at least, to align it with some main element of the poster. 5.Additional Logos Should you need to display additional logos (e.g., of partner organizations or universities), reduce or enlarge them to a height within those of the JRC logo and the Directorate or Institute logo. Place any additional logos on the bottom of the poster, evenly spaced between the JRC and (if there is one) the Directorate or Institute logo, and vertically centred with them. 2011 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE Conclusion FTA, because of its integrative and future-oriented approach, plays a relevant in informing actors in enacting-selecting games in N&N. FTA methods (and the related institutional capacity) are used by enactors as well as by selectors. Contrary to some assumptions in the literature, results of FTA are usually perceived by both ‘camps’. They are informing decisions of actors and translated into actual policies and actions. At the same time, FTA institutions have become ‘actors of their own right’ in this process. How they select, frame, analyze and solve problems at the interface between science and politics may have an important impact on the future development of emerging technologies. The development of nanotechnology debates Technological development or innovation is often described as a continuous, iterative process of variation and selection (Nelson and Winter). Quasi-evolutionary models of this process stress the special role of actors. Actors anticipate on the selection environment because they have some imaginations of future demands and challenges. They also seek to shape the selection environments, for instance by voicing expectations or by forming institutional arrangements. Innovation therefore can be understood as being embedded in a ‘cultural matrix of expectations’ (Van Lente). We have tried to reconstruct this process by analyzing the development of the dominant narratives of key actors in nanotechnology policy in Germany. Fig. 1 shows how these narratives diversified and changed over time. FTA in S&T Governance - Nanotech in Germany Molecular Machines / nanoBots Competitiveness / Applying NT / „Nano for …“ Nanomaterials (MNP) Risks ‚Green nano‘ Regulation of NT Endless Innovation / ‚Enabling Technology‘ / Technological Revolution 1995 201020002005 Year Fig.1: Diversification and temporal development of narratives in the German N&N debate Contact Torsten Fleischer Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) Tel. +49 721 608-24571 Fax +49 721 608-24806 E-mail: Torsten.Fleischer@kit.edu