About the project

 

Attitudes to new science and emerging technologies are typically ambivalent in Europe, and there is a need to bring policy more into harmony with the perceived needs and aspirations of Europeans citizens in regard to basic social values.

 

Eurobarometers such as those of 2005 confirmed the mixed attitudes among citizens in regard to potential developments in science and technology. Public acceptance of science is, however, crucial for progress and implementation as was most strongly experienced in Europe in regard to modern biotechnology.

 

Major factors of public acceptance are ethics and risk of science and technology. As new technologies, as e.g. biometrics and genetic research, are currently rapidly evolving, European research policies must address ethical issues in science and technology at the outset, rather than at the stage of marketable products. Furthermore, schemes of citizens’ involvement and consultation are seen as promising forms of governance, and have already been the backbone of FP6.

 

However, current practice indicate that existing forms of governance and addressing ethical issues are still somewhat barren in relation to the speed of scientific development and the resulting policy needs. A report by the Science Policy Research Group (2004) concluded that social values can rightly be seen as central drivers for people’s attitudes to science and technology, but that one is still largely unable to understand and penetrate basic concepts, to acquire good and reliable data on European social values, to perform an intelligent reading of existing data, and to adjust policy adequately to empirical findings.

 

This potentially impedes efforts to provide good ethical frameworks for new technologies, addressing the heterogeneity of different values as well as value concepts and their respective implications.

 

Two specific technologies will be analyzed in these respects closely: biotechnology dealing with pathogens with a pandemic potential (biosafety and biosecurity issue), and biometrics as a security technology.

 

This project aims at providing a blueprint for a value-based governance of science and technology and to specify more specific research needs from 2013 onwards