Human Practices: Methods

Figure 1. the Interactive iGEM research approach.

The involvement of all relevant stakeholders are described below.

Social scientist

The involvement of a social scientist brings about a different perspective on an iGEM project. This way young researchers participating on iGEM are pushed out of their comfort zone, and stimulated to think about their project and the possible application from another point of view.

Experts in biotechnology

After choosing a project, extensive literature research and designing the molecular design of your iGEM project, try to get in touch with the experts in that field. Try to acquire extensive feedback from these scientists, with the goal of refining the molecular mechanism of your project design. Don’t hesitate to contact the needed expertise during any phase of your project.

Stakeholders in potential fields

Contemporary complex societal and environmental problems require a new type of knowledge production. Transdisciplinarity aims at incorporating the knowledge and expertise from stakeholders outside the scientific community. Try to get acquainted with possible safety, security, ethical and legal issues concerning your iGEM project, early in the stage of your project design. After interesting these stakeholders for your project, don’t forget to mention that you are looking for financial support.

Biosafety officer

Contact an institute that governs legislation at national level to find out in what way a future application of your iGEM project may be subject to safety and security. Stakeholders in the field of your iGEM project typically have usual tips regarding these issues, but they might not always be up to date with the legislative framework.

Human Outreach

Human outreach or public engagement is essential. Ideally, the public will be benefitting from your iGEM project in the future. Without public acceptance of your iGEM project during the developmental phase, your project is bound to fail. Therefore it is necessary to reflect on public perception. Informing and educating public is only one part of the deal. Make sure that you interact with the public to get acquainted with their ideas on your iGEM project.

Key Concepts

• Constructive Technology Assessment: “By broadening the design, development and embedding of technology in society, CTA could make the co-evolution of technology and society more reflexive”. [1]

• Midstream modulation: aims to construct collaborative engagement between social and natural scientists in the laboratory, in order to broaden research decisions incrementally. [2]

• Transdisciplinarity: “As distinct from interdisciplinary research, transdisciplinarity research moves beyond the integration of different scientific disciplines by also incorporating the knowledge, interests and values of stakeholders who are not part of the scientific community”. [3]

• Valorization: the importance of utilizing and benefitting from knowledge created through science.

• Platform technology: It can be defined as a structural or technological form from which various products can emerge without the expense of a new process/technology introduction.

• Biosafety: biosafety covers measures that aim to prevent the unintentional exposure to pathogens and toxins, or their accidental release

• Biosecurity: biosecurity measures focus on the prevention of theft, misuse, or intentional release of pathogens and toxins

• Reflexivity: it is important to find out how interests and world-views differ among people all over the world, regarding the life forms that SB deals with, now and in the future. These differences in perception need to be taken into account, because there are no single answers to the ethical questions regarding SB arising from these different perceptions.

References

^{[1] Rip, A., Misa, T. J., & Schot, J. (1995). Managing technology in society. Pinter Publishers. Retrieved from http://downey.sts.vt.edu/assets/pdfs/1995 Constructive Technology Assessment,.pdf}

^{[2] Fisher E, Mitcham C, Mahajan R (2006) Midstream modulation of technology: governance from within. Bull Sci Technol Soc 26: 485–496.}

^{[3] Kloet, R. R. (2011). Realizing Societal Ambitions in Innovative Research Programs: The Case of the Dutch Ecogenomics Consortium. Oisterwijk, The Netherlands.}