The Research Councils UK Nanoscience Programme is actively working to promote responsible nanotechnologies innovation, building on the recommendations made by the Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering in 2004 and the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution in 2008.
These reports highlighted the need for research which reduces the high uncertainties associated with risk assessment of manufactured nanoparticles, in the areas of (eco)toxicology, fate, behaviour and metrology. In 2006 the Environmental Nanoscience Initiative (ENI) was established to build a community of scientists with the relevant expertise to develop the evidence base to support policy making. The partners (NERC, EPSRC, Defra and the Environment Agency) are now joined by the US Environmental Protection Agency to establish the first major international programme in this area. This complements a number of awards made by the research councils through responsive mode, and through mechanisms such as signposting (by EPSRC and MRC) in the areas of nanometrology and nanotoxicology.
The ENI is complemented by the PROSPEcT LINK project, which feeds into the international Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Programme that is evaluating risk methodologies for manufactured nanoparticles.
EPSRC is also working to develop anticipatory risk governance approaches that promote responsible nanotechnologies innovation in an upstream manner, building on recommendations made by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. EPSRC’s Nanotechnologies Grand Challenge for Environmental Solutions contains a section on responsible innovation that is trialling new approaches in this area.