
The Story of Responsible Research & Innovation in 36 Chapters
[…] the ongoing but gradually changing discussions concerning both the virus and the measures to prevent its spread gives me the benefit of hindsight when stress-testing the concepts and practices of responsible research and innovation described in the handbook against how they actually fared in the case of a pandemic.

A new Taxonomy for Nanofabrication
An in-depth mapping report by the NanoFabNet Hub illustrates the urgent need for a new, harmonised taxonomy for nanofabrication: when analysing the structures and naming conventions of 66 cleanroom nanofabrication facilities located in 15 countries in Europe and the United States, advertising more than 3000 pieces of equipment to be

Common Challenges & Opportunities in sustainable Nanofabrication
A new report by the NanoFabNet finds that – even if a lot of work had been done at an international level during the last 30 years in the nanofabrication field – a lot of challenges were still to be met. The authors found that the challenges belonged to two

Challenges & Opportunities in the Validation, Harmonisation & Standardisation of industrial-scale Nanofabrication
The NanoFabNet report on ‘Challenges & Opportunities of Validating, Harmonising & Standardising industrial-scale Nanofabrication’ is a seminal review of both the ongoing effort to support emerging technologies, such as nanofabrication, through harmonisation efforts, and the challenges and opportunities of nanofabrication itself. Based on an in-depth analysis of scientific literature and

International Network Initiative on Safe & Sustainable Nanotechnology
The EU-Asia Dialogue on NanoSafety, which commenced in 2017 as a series of annual conferences organised by members of the EU NanoSafety Cluster and the Asia Nano Forum, published concept paper for the creation and activities of a new International Network Initiative on Safe & Sustainable Nanotechnology (INISS-nano) (http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5004929). INISS-nano

COVID-19: Nanomedicine’s finest Hour?
Nanotechnology played a central role in providing the first two authorised vaccines against the COVID-19 pandemic just nine months after its underlying SARS-CoV-2 virus spread across the world, turning the pandemic crisis into what may be regarded as nanomedicine’s finest hour. Drs Steffi Friedrichs and Diana M. Bowman illustrate the

Research Funding by Collaboration: Gov4Nano & SAF€RA create Joint Project Calls
In November 2019, the Horizon 2020 project Gov4Nano (Gov4Nano – Meeting the Needs of Nanotechnology) and the ERA-NET Partnership SAF€RA published a joint Gov4Nano-SAF€RA call on the topic of call, on the topic ‘Safety concerns and opportunities related to advanced materials and new technologies in energy production and storage‘. According to

Technology Governance through (Re-)Insurance
‘[I]nsurance is the institution of governance beyond the state […]’ [R. V. Ericson, A. Doyle, and D. Barry ‘Insurance as Governance’, 2003] Based on an in-depth analysis conducted for the Gov4Nano Project, Dr Steffi Friedrichs delivered a seminar entitled ‘Nanotechnology & the Insurance Industry’ as part of the Environmental Health

NanoFabNet publishes ‘Concepts & Disciplines of Sustainability in Nanotechnology & Nanofabrication’
The NanoFabNet, a new network for sustainable, industrial-scale nanofabrication, supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation, published a report entitled ‘Concepts & Disciplines of Sustainability in Nanotechnology & Nanofabrication’. This report is devoted to a review of the concepts and disciplines of Sustainability in Nanotechnology and Nanofabrication.

Nanotechnology & the Insurance Industry – Waving, not Drowning
‘There are still open questions [surrounding nanotechnology], but that applies to many emerging risks from new technologies‘ reads one of the main conclusions of a report about ‘The Information Needs of the (Re-)Insurance Industry’ concerning the risks posed by nanotechnologies; the quote was one of the concluding remarks given by

A Plea for Standards in Synthetic Biology
… the promise of SynBio for the benefit of global society and industry will only be met if significant advances are achieved on the standardisation front. [The long journey towards standards for engineering biosystems, EMBO Rep (2020) e50521, https://doi.org/10.15252/embr.202050521] A joint group of of experts in synthetic biology (SynBio) and

Regulatory Approaches to Genome Editing in Agriculture
The organisers of the ‘OECD Conference on Genome Editing: Applications in Agriculture – Implications for Health, Environment and Regulation’ published ‘An overview of regulatory approaches to genome editing in agriculture’. The article summarises the OECD Conference session on ‘Regulatory Aspects of Genome Editing’, during which government representatives from six different

Meeting Report and full Proceedings of the OECD Conference on Genome Editing
The long-awaited ‘Meeting Report of the OECD Conference on “Genome Editing: Applications in Agriculture—Implications for Health, Environment and Regulation”’ of the seminal OECD Conference, held on the 28. – 29. June 2018 has now been published (Transgenic Research, August 2019, Volume 28, Issue 3–4, pp 419–463; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11248-019-00154-1). The Conference brought together policy makers,

Policy Considerations Regarding Genome Editing
‘Policy Considerations Regarding Genome Editing’ (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tibtech.2019.05.005) have now been published in the latest ‘online now’-edition of Trends in Biotechnology. Summarising the policy discussions during the seminal OECD Conference, held on the 28. – 29. June 2018, this scientific article highlights the manifold arguments for and against more stringent regulations of genome

Book Launch – Nanotech EHS Reference now in its 3rd Edition
On the 8. October 2018, the 3rd edition of the established “Nanotechnology Environmental Health and Safety – Risks, Regulation, and Management” was officially launched in Washington DC, USA, containing a preface by AcumenIST Steffi Friedrichs.
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