Two expert workshops were held during the project. At the first, in May 2005, discussion focussed on how to frame nanotechnology and its risks and benefits; this discussion underpinned the distinction drawn by IRGC between Frame One (passive) and Frame Two (active) nanotechnologies. The second, held in January 2006, concentrated more directly on identifying deficits in the risk governance of nanotechnology and developing ideas for what were to become IRGC’s recommendations for improved risk governance.
Between the two workshops, surveys were undertaken amongst experts closely involved in the development and regulation of nanotechnology from governments, industry, research organisations and non-governmental organisations. The findings provided the project team with the then current thinking about the main risks associated with nanotechnology and some expert opinions for improving risk governance structures and processes. Each of the four survey reports is available upon request.
The discussions at the two workshops and the survey findings were used by the project team to support an application of IRGC’s risk governance framework to nanotechnology and to the research and writing of the project’s main report and recommendations. The report was published in July 2006 as IRGC’s White Paper No.2 on Nanotechnology Risk Governance.
The White Paper was launched at the project’s concluding conference, co-organised by IRGC with the Swiss Re Centre for Global Dialogue. The conference, ’The Risk Governance of Nanotechnology: Recommendations for Managing a Global Issue’ (the full report of the conference can be downloaded here.) provided the invited audience with the opportunity to comment on, add to and influence IRGC’s final recommendations, which were published in its policy brief “Nanotechnology risk governance” in early 2008.