Researching and Teaching the Ethics and Social Implications of Emerging Technologies in the Laboratory

McGregor, Joan; Wetmore, Jameson M.

doi:10.1007/s11569-009-0055-1

Cited by 25 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…The approach proposed in this study is complementary to current work that is attempting to enhance reflexivity of scientists in the nanotechnology area and beyond about the wider contexts of their research within a laboratory setting, so-called midstream modulation. (9,16,29,30) This study differs in that the research council mandated scientists to include approaches such as constructive technology assessment (8,31) and risk analysis within the funding proposal itself (i.e., such that they are planned, integrated, and costed activities). Midstream modulation approaches have aimed to demonstrate that research decisions and innovation trajectories can be modulated by engineering and physical scientists themselves by enhancing reflexivity through a number of mechanisms (e.g., by periodically embedding scientists from ethics and social science disciplines in the laboratory setting).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responsible Innovation: A Pilot Study with the U.K. Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

Owen¹,

2010

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Significant time lags between the development of novel innovations (e.g., nanotechnologies), understanding of their wider impacts, and subsequent governance (e.g., regulation) have led to repeated calls for more anticipatory and adaptive approaches that promote the responsible emergence of new technologies in democratic societies. A key challenge is implementation in a pragmatic way. Results are presented of a study with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the largest public funder of basic innovation research in the United Kingdom who, for the first time, asked applicants to submit a risk register identifying the wider potential impacts and associated risks (environment, health, societal, and ethical) of their proposed research. This focused on nanoscience for carbon capture and utilization. Risk registers were completed conservatively, with most identified impacts concerning researchers' health associated with nanoparticle synthesis, handling, and prototype device fabrication, i.e., risks that could be identified and managed with a reasonable level of certainty. Few wider environmental impacts and no future impacts on society were identified, reflecting the often uncertain and unpredictable nature of innovation. However, some applicants addressed this by including investigators with expertise beyond engineering and nanosciences supporting integrated activities that included life cycle and real-time technology assessment, which in some cases were also framed by stakeholder and/or public engagement. Proposals underpinned by a strong commitment to responsible science and innovation promoted continuous reflexivity, embedding a suite of multidisciplinary approaches around the innovation research core to support decisions modulating the trajectory of their innovation research in real-time.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responsible Innovation: A Pilot Study with the U.K. Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

Owen¹,

2010

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“…An ethics advocate has a designated interest in, and lobbies for, social and ethical concerns within the design process (Friedman, Kahn, & Borning, 2006; Manders‐Huits & Zimmer, 2009). Initial studies in engineering ethics have shown promising results of such interventions (Fisher, 2007; McGregor & Wetmore, 2009). A variety of individual and social factors, however, may limit the effectiveness of an ethics advocate.…”

Section: Methods and Interventionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Technology development with an agenda: Interventions to emphasize values in design

Shilton

2010

Proc. Am. Soc. Info. Sci. Tech.

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Researchers have begun exploring techniques to promote social values within the technology design process. Increasingly, such projects include interventions: action research that inserts social scientists into design to promote values of interest. This article evaluates interventions to promote privacy and anti-surveillance values in a ubiquitous computing laboratory. Data from two years of participant observation suggest how interventions by outside social scientists, mentors and colleagues, clients and research subjects, and institutional authorities increase designers' ability to foreground, react to, and incorporate privacy and anti-surveillance ethics into design. The article also suggests criteria by which social science researchers can evaluate the success of a values in design intervention, including 1) moving the values advocate from outsider to insider; 2) changing the topic of conversation; 3) making values considerations a positive, rather than negative, part of design work; and 4) materializing new values in resulting technologies. Though the project features a difficult-toreplicate blend of personalities and situations, analysis of the structures that enabled successful interventions can be useful to researchers concerned with values in design.

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“…[25] The project has two purposes: on the one hand it serves as a kind of prototype for designing and improving ways of bringing ethical questions into the daily lab work; on the other hand, it aims to educate the participants to think about science from a new perspective. As a third goal, this kind of discussion can help uncover values and regulations that are commonly valid, following Habermas discourse ethics.…”

Section: Sustainability the Ability Of Perceiving Reality: A Practicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethics, Chemistry, and Education for Sustainability

Frank¹,

Campanella²,

Dondi³

et al. 2011

Angew Chem Int Ed

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Have not the experts and their research contributed all\ud these innovations, their translation into services and goods by\ud the respective industries, in chemistry and in other fields of\ud science and technology? Coping with limitations in crucial\ud resources has always been an important driving force for the\ud growth in chemical knowledge and the achievements of the\ud chemical industry: Habers and Boschs research on the\ud fixation of atmospheric nitrogen in the form of ammonia was\ud triggered by the shortage of natural nitrate, the Chilean\ud salitre. Similar limitations led to coal liquefaction by Fischer\ud and Tropsch. And a third example is the development of\ud synthetic rubber in the 1930s which eased the dependence of\ud industry on natural rubber from tropical countries—which at\ud the turn of the 19th to the 20th century had brought great\ud profits to the traders, but also great suffering to the people of\ud the countries of origin, for example, the Congo. Today it is not\ud much different. With challenges such as the peaking of the\ud major feedstock of chemical industry, that is, crude oil, and its\ud spiraling price as an energy source, research for more efficient\ud photovoltaic materials is increasingly important.\ud But what is meant by “sustainability”? Simply carrying\ud on? A connotation of a “better world” resonates in this word;\ud and certainly the development meant is not what resulted\ud from the chemical-industrial progress in the first half of the\ud twentieth century with its two world wars, the blasting away of\ud millions of people possible by Habers inventions, and the\ud ability to transform coal into the fuel for the war machine, for\ud instance at Auschwitz, where the great poet-chemist Primo\ud Levi suffered as an enslaved laborer-scientist

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Researching and Teaching the Ethics and Social Implications of Emerging Technologies in the Laboratory

Cited by 25 publications

References 17 publications

Responsible Innovation: A Pilot Study with the U.K. Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

Responsible Innovation: A Pilot Study with the U.K. Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

Technology development with an agenda: Interventions to emphasize values in design

Ethics, Chemistry, and Education for Sustainability

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