The public value of nanotechnology?

Abstract

Science and innovation policy (SIP) is typically justified in terms of public values while SIP program assessments are typically limited to economic terms that imperfectly take into account these values. The study of public values through public value mapping (PVM) lacks widely-accepted methods for systematically identifying value structures within SIP and its public policy processes, especially when there are multiple stakeholder groups. This paper advances the study of public values in SIP using nanoscale science and engineering (NSE) policy by demonstrating that quantitative analysis of value statements can provide a credible and robust basis for policy analysis. We use content analysis of over 1,000 documents with over 100,000 pages from major contributors to the NSE policy discourse to identify and analyze a wide range of public value statements. Data analysis and reduction methods reveal a multifactor structure of public values that has been consistently cited by a range of actors in an NSE research policy network.

Organizations, Policies, and the Roots of Public Value Failure: The Case of For‐Profit Higher Education

“…Bozeman ' s ( 2002Bozeman ' s ( , 2007 public value mapping framework provides a set of analytical heuristics for deliberation of public value that are built on here. Versions of this framework have been applied in a number of policy domains, including agricultural biotechnology (Bozeman 2007 ), cancer research (Slade 2011 ), green chemistry (Logar 2011 ), flu vaccines (Feeney and Bozeman 2007 ), federally funded climate science (Meyer 2011 ), university technology transfer (Valdivia 2011 ), and federally funded nanoscale science and engineering (Anderson and Slade 2013 ;Fisher et al 2010 ).…”

As Good as It Gets? On the Meaning of Public Value in the Study of Policy and Management

“…Here, the concept of public values is in opposition to dominant "economic" approaches in the analysis of public policies (Bozeman, 2007, p. 18). There is a more heterogeneous group of authors associated with this discourse, besides those specifically developing Bozeman's public value failure (PVF) model (Feeney, 2008;Feeney & Bozeman, 2007;Fisher, Slade, Anderson, & Bozeman, 2010;Meyer, 2011;Moulton, 2009;Moulton & Bozeman, 2008). Despite all the optimism, however, after 20 years the concept of public value has not yet gained a consensus, being used by most authors as an unproblematic, everyday concept that can be used fruitfully in theory and practice.…”

Agenda Setting in Emergent R&D Policy Subsystems: Examining Discourse Effects of the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act

“…Thus, federally funded scientific programs have a rich history of being justified by a wide range of public values, but only recently have frameworks been developed to observe impacts of scientific research and development through the “web of institutions, networks and groups that give rise to social impacts” (Bozeman & Sarewitz, , p. 1). Scientific research and development have traditionally been evaluated in terms of their economic benefits and outcomes (Bozeman, ; Bozeman & Sarewitz, ; Fisher, Slade, Anderson, & Bozeman, ). However, economic values fall short of representing the full spectrum of public interests.…”

“…PVM has been applied to policies for climate science and federal climate change programs (Meyer, ), nanomedicine and cancer (Slade, 2011a, 2011b), intellectual property laws and university technology transfer (Valdivia, ), natural disaster research (Maricle, ), and nanotechnology (Fisher et al., ).…”