ABSTRACT
By analysing materials research and its historical links to industry and national policy, this chapter provides an understanding of the circumstances that framed the creation of ‘nanotechnology’ as top priority in the US national science policy and innovation policy. It utilizes the historical description to explain why nanotechnology initiatives bring high expectations for innovation outcomes, while they do not provide a plan for how this development should be organised. The innovation perspective emphasises that research is embedded with and linked to society. This means paying attention to the various ‘contexts of application’ that surround scientific practice and that embed this practice in a societal frame. Historians and sociologists that study research and knowledge-based innovation using contextual approaches have shown that actual research involves a constant blurring and renegotiation of such dichotomies and boundaries. The field of nanotechnology has, despite its relative immaturity, already developed a shared view on its own origin and evolution.
