The NANO2ALL citizen dialogues are just around the corner. These deliberative events will take place in France, Israel, Italy, Poland, Spain and Sweden in April and May 2017. They will aim to gather input from citizens about their values, desires, and concerns regarding nanotechnology. Citizens in the dialogues will be encouraged to build their own narrative objects that will help them compose narratives of the future in relation to three different nanotechnology application fields: Nanotextiles, Brain-machine interfaces and Nanomedicine. Narratives will not only bring an important insight into citizens' views about these technological areas, but will also provide essential inputs into the scenario exploration game to be played by nanotechnology stakeholders in the national multi-stakeholder dialogues in autumn 2017.

Our consortium took part in an exciting test event last December in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. We had the chance to experiment the prototype version of the NANO2ALL scenario exploration game (adapted from JRC´s future simulation tool ‘Scenario Exploration System’ (SES)). The game, which will be used as part of the multi-stakeholder dialogues, explores future nanotechnology scenario situations in the targeted application areas (as referred above) across multiple timelines. More importantly, the game allows participants to take different social roles associated with nanotechnologies, helping to imagine themselves in someone else´s shoes and comprehend the social dynamics developed due to stakeholders’ interaction. This simulation tool does not only facilitate raising awareness of the diversity of views and positions that different societal groups might have, but it is also an excellent instrument for engaging participants into a meaningful conversation.

Engaging with societal groups is not an uncommon phenomenon in the scientific world. In fact, more and more initiatives deal with this matter and put in practice societal engagement techniques in a range of scientific and technological fields. But what about real-world experiences? Do they exist? What about nanotech? Do scientists, nanotech companies, policy-makers and others interact with each other and/or societal groups about their opinions concerning this technology? NANO2ALL would like to discover these experiences and use them to inspire others to adopt similar activities.

If you are aware or part of such experiences, please send them to: [email protected]

On 13 October 2016, during the S.NET 2016 conference (www.thesnet.net), we organized an interactive session on RRI and effective dialogue approaches that could be used in NANO2ALL. Together with the session participants, we brainstormed about what responsibility means in practice. Some participants associated ‘responsibility’ with new trends in regulation, moving from government to governance of nanotechnology, through ‘soft laws’, voluntary codes of conduct, etc. Others linked it to recent developments in open innovation, citizen science and Do-It-Yourself technology, aiming to create responsible nanotechnology ‘by design’. A short report highlighting these and other dilemmas will shortly be published at www.nano2all.eu.

The project on Sustainable Nanotechnologies, www.sun-fp7.eu has pioneered early stakeholder engagement in designing a Decision Support System that supports safe and sustainable nanomaterials and nanoproducts (SUNDS). As SUN is coming to an end, a smooth transition to the follow-up project CaLIBRAte is organized, including broadening stakeholder engagement to civil society organizations (CSOs). Both projects are organizing a stakeholder workshop during the SRA Policy forum, 2-3 March 2017 in Venice, Italy.

Compass is an EU-funded project that guides SMEs to manage research, development and innovation in a responsible way. The COMPASS team is organizing the Responsible Nanotech Breakfast on 1 March 2017 in Brussels. This event aims to introduce nanotechnology SMEs into the upcoming RI labs, a series of sessions that will define specific actions and goals to co-create RI roadmaps. These guidelines will be key to make research and innovation more open and responsive to societal needs.

HEIRRI is an EC-funded project that aims to promote the integration of RRI within the formal and informal education of future scientists, engineers, and other professionals involved in the research, development, and innovation process. The project has launched an online forum; a space for debate and dialogue between the project and the many stakeholders affected or involved in RRI and/or Higher Education Institutions.

Prisma is an EU-funded project that aims to show the added value of opening up the innovation process for social engagement, gender equality, transparency and other ethical issues. The ITAS team (led by Christopher Coenen and Maria João Maia) together with partners from the Netherlands, Italy and the UK carries out eight Europe-wide pilot projects in a real-world industry context. They focus on implementing RRI for some of the major transformative technologies in the EU, including nanotechnology, synthetic biology, Internet of Things and self-driving or automated cars.

Societal engagement is an important element of RRI. However, there is insufficient insight into what policy makers, research funders and other actors involved in governing or performing research can do to encourage and facilitate societal engagement that meet the requirements of RRI. The PROSO project aims to foster engagement of two types of actors that are only marginally involved so far: NGO’s and non-organized citizens.

Responsible Research and Innovation in Practice (RRI-Practice) is a Horizon 2020 project funded under the Science-with-and-for-Society (SWAFS) programme. The project started up in September 2016 and studies the practical implementation of RRI in 22 research conducting and research funding organisations within and outside Europe. All the partners in the project are now in the process of organising national workshops where stakeholders discuss how RRI is understood in the respective countries.

RRI Tools was an EU funded project aiming to raise awareness, train, disseminate and implement RRI. The webpage of the RRI Tools Final Conference has recently been published. Visit the page and consult the main materials and outcomes of the conference: videos, presentations, pictures, booklet, link to posts in the blog, etc.