ABSTRACT
While innovative technologies promise to act as a motor for economic progress as well as societal benefits, they also invoke increasingly complex questions regarding institutional arrangements to govern their accompanying uncertainties and risks (Wynne 2001; Jasanoff 2005; Löfstedt 2005; Van Asselt and Vos 2006, 2008). How can we stimulate nanotechnology to produce smaller, lighter, faster and/or energy-efficient devices with more or new functionalities, while at the same time ensuring that the possibility of long-term health effects and/or environmental impacts is adequately accommodated? How can we regulate the chemical Bisphenol A (used in the production of baby bottles and teethers for example) for which the risk assessments are contradictory and thus uncertain regarding possible adverse health effects for babies (see also the chapter by Fox et al. in this volume)?
