NIRT: Evaluating Oversight Models for Active Nanostructures and Nanosystems: Learning from Past Technologies in a Societal Context

This project aimed to identify oversight models for nanotechnology by assessing 6 historical oversight models: for drugs, devices, gene transfer, genetically engineered organisms in the food supply, chemicals in the workplace, and chemicals in the environment. The project brought together a multidisciplinary group of Investigators and senior personnel from the University of Minnesota, with strengths in nanotechnology research and development, public policy, law, health, environment, economics, and bioethics and involves outside collaborators representing a range of perspectives. The project team evaluated oversight models using a historical and comparative approach and integrated findings to glean lessons for emerging applications of nanotechnology.

Project outcomes

• A project symposium entitled "Special Focus: Governance of Nanobiotechnology" published in the Journal of Nanoparticle Research
• Publication of individually authored papers analyzing the 6 historical oversight models
• Publication of a group-authored consensus paper on lessons for nanotechnology oversight; a published symposium on "Developing Oversight Approaches to Nanobiotechnology: The Lessons of History" in the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, Winter 2009
• A public conference on "Governing Nanobiotechnology: Reinventing Oversight in the 21st Century" 
• A workshop series was developed as a course option for both undergraduates and graduate students within the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, with cross-registration from the Law School  and other programs.