Overview
The SeeingNano project created Novel Visualisation Tools for Enhanced Nanotechnology Awareness through a coordinated collaborative approach conducted by leading experts in the relevant fields: the target audiences identified in the proposal was analysed by the consortium's socio-economic sciences and humanities, who - in collaboration with the consortium's state-of-the-art information visualisation partners - elaborated and agreed on the most appropriate tool to address the respective audiences. The scientific and technical content to be communicated through each tool to the respective audiences was provided by experts from the nano-phenomena research community in collaboration with experts from the risk-communication and nanotoxicology community, in order to provide the key audiences with an ability to ‘seeing at the nanoscale’, and an understanding and awareness for the breadth of nanotechnologies, and the uncertainties and potential risks connected to them. The resulting tools were flexibly designed for customisation by the nanotechnology stakeholder community, and supported by guidance documents on
(a) the socio-economic aspects of awareness-building exercises on nanotechnologies,
(b) the science- and technology content and story boards on the nanotechnology-phenomena and their potential risks, and
(c) the technical customisation of the tools provided.
The project started in December 2014. The project duration were 24 months.
Role of BioNanoNet: member of SeeingNano External Working Group (EWG)
For more details please visit the project website www.seeingnano.eu.
Details
The 1st December 2014 saw the official start of one of the first Horizon 2020 NMP1 projects: under the descriptive ‘SeeingNano’-acronym, nine partner organisations from five different EU Member States will combine their excellences in graphics design, online gaming, state-of-the-art nanotechnology research, science-and technology communication and stakeholder engagement, in order to meet the European Commission’s original call for ‘Novel visualization tools for enhanced nanotechnology awareness (NMP-31-2014).
The SeeingNano project aims to develop and pilot a set of customisable visualisation tools and accompanying guidance manuals and good-practice examples on how to inform key audiences about nanotechnologies, in order to stimulate their awareness, increase their understanding and enable their informed balanced opinion-forming process. The tried and tested tools, guiding documents and examples will be published in a an online interactive repository, alongside a database of the science- and technology content gathered during this project, in order to ultimately encourage stakeholders of the nanotechnology community to use the repository content for their own public engagement exercises and to add to it with their own visualisation tools, guidance/experience reports, success stories, and flexibly usable science- and technology-based content.
It is the ultimate goal of the SeeingNano project to make available a public online SeeingNano exchange with visualisation tools, guidance and content for the enhancement of nanotechnology awareness-building exercises conducted by the nanotechnology stakeholder community. The backbone of this repository is formed by the SeeingNano output: a set of good communication practices, developed and stress-tested within the project, supported by captivating customisable visualisation tools, to demonstrate the raising of awareness and understanding and ultimately leading to better informed decisions on nanotechnologies.
In addition to making the SeeingNano tools and guidance available through the public repository, they will be actively disseminated to industry, academic organisations, governmental organisations and other stakeholders of the nanotechnology community, accompanied by the good-practice guidance, in order to support the increased public awareness raising and provide balanced information through the use and customisation of the SeeingNano tools and continued addition to the SeeingNano online exchange (i.e. a one-stop-shop for nanotechnology stakeholders find and mix and match (and upload their own) novel visualisation tools for nanotechnology awareness-building).
Grant agreement no: 646141
[1] NMP: Nanotechnologies, Advanced Materials, Biotechnology and Advanced Manufacturing and Processing
