Social science contributions compared in synthetic biology and nanotechnology

Abstract

With growing attention to societal issues and implications of synthetic biology, we investigate sources of social science publication knowledge in synthetic biology and probe what might be learned by comparison with earlier rounds of social science research in nanotechnology. “Social science” research is broadly defined to include publications in conventional social science as well as humanities, law, ethics, business, and policy fields. We examine the knowledge clusters underpinning social science publications in nanotechnology and synthetic biology using a methodology based on the analysis of cited references. Our analysis finds that social science research in synthetic biology already has traction and direction, rooted in an ethical, legal, and social implications framework. However, compared with nanotechnology, social science research in synthetic biology could further explore opportunities and openings for engagement, anticipatory, and downstream application perspectives that will help to build a wider platform for insights into current and future societal impacts.

Keywords:

• nanotechnology
• synthetic biology
• social science publications
• societal implications
• knowledge sources

Researchers in the social sciences (including humanities, law, ethics, business, and policy) are increasingly involved in analyzing and reflecting upon the societal aspects of emerging technologies. The late 1980s and 1990s saw growth in work on the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of genetic sequencing via the Human Genome Project (Fisher 2005). In the 2000s, research on the societal implications of nanotechnology developed in the USA, Europe, and other countries. For example, beginning in the mid-2000s, the US National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) supported a range of nanotechnology in society research activities including two national centers (Roco et al. 2011). Most recently, attention has been given to issues of responsible research and innovation in an array of emerging technologies (von Schomberg 2013). As consideration focuses on societal concerns and social science research agendas in synthetic biology, we probe what might be learned by comparison with social science research outputs from earlier rounds of emerging technologies, particularly nanotechnology.

Societal research in nanotechnology and synthetic biology both occur in what might be called a post-GMO (genetically modified organism) setting. It is an era in which science comes under greater public scrutiny, and expectations are heightened related to accountability, deliberation, and responsibility and to the societal relevance of research and innovation (Lee 2012). At the same time, any comparisons need to take account of contextual differences: whereas there was relatively little dedicated research capability in place prior to the ramp-up of societal research in nanotechnology, societal research in synthetic biology today draws upon a well-established infrastructure of ELSI life science research in biotechnology, human genome, and health domains with many ELSI investigators co-located in transdisciplinary centers comprised of medical researchers, bioethicists, and legal investigators (Calvert and Martin 2009).

We can see that societal research outputs in synthetic biology are already burgeoning. A Google Scholar analysis (by the authors) for the period 2004 to early October 2014 finds more than 500 publications (including journal articles, policy reports, books, and working papers) that consider societal aspects of synthetic biology; of these, about three-fifths were published since 2010 (“societal aspects” here includes publications oriented towards social science, humanities, philosophical, business, legal, intellectual property, regulatory, governance, or policy). Google Scholar offers broad indications of output scale and picks up a wide range of publications. However, to finely analyze the characteristics of research outputs, we need to use analytical approaches applied to other structured publication databases. We are particularly interested to explore the underlying clusters of knowledge underlying societal research in synthetic biology and do so by making a comparison with an earlier study we undertook in the nanotechnology social science subdomain (Shapira, Youtie, and Porter 2010). We compare these two subdomains at similar developmental points, in the initial period of social science investment – through to 2007 for nanotechnology social science research and through to May 2014 for synthetic biology social science research. These two periods encompass roughly the same number of social science articles (approximately 300) extracted from the Web of Science Social Science and Arts and Humanities Index and the Scopus Social Science and Humanities category and represent comparable periods in the publication growth trajectories of our two targeted research domains. The spotlight on the early period of development in nanotechnology social science enables comparison with the current incipient stage of synthetic biology social science. Although we do not include nanotechnology social science papers published from 2008 onwards in the nanotechnology analysis, such papers do have the possibility to be cited as knowledge sources for synthetic biology social science papers. For this analysis, the multidisciplinary journals Science, Nature, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences are excluded as they also include natural science papers.

Our focus is on the knowledge clusters that underpin social science studies in nanotechnology and synthetic biology using a methodology based on the analysis of cited references (also known as “backward citations”). One common interpretation of cited references is that they reflect the knowledge bases and flows used in a research article. The use of backward citations also enables inclusion of books, gray literature and policy documents, as well as research articles. The method focuses on highly cited authors (cited by a threshold number of articles); using a Person name fuzzy list cleanup algorithm to obtain this list, applying multi-dimensional scaling to co-citations of authors; and taking the results down to two-dimensional space to produce a network map of the results in which the nodes represented the number of papers citing the work and the links represent the degree of association between the nodes (after applying a path-erasing algorithm to focus on the strongest links).

Our earlier study of cited references found eight social science areas represented in the nanotechnology social science subdomain (Figure 1). These were: science visions (including science fiction), scientometrics, public perception and deliberation, governance, ethics, science and technology, and a hub represented by citations to M. Roco of the National Science Foundation (a prominent public figure in the development of US nanotechnology policy). The relative use of citations in these areas changed over time, with science visions articles being cited more in the early years, then other central social science areas being cited more in the later years. Applying the same method to synthetic biology, we find a different set of disciplines represented in the peer-reviewed societal research literature to date (Youtie, Shapira, and Li 2014) (Figure 2). Synthetic biology social science knowledge citations focus on a large cluster of bioscientists and bioengineers; an overlapping cluster of history and philosophy researchers; an overlapping cluster comprised of science and technology studies, law, governance, ethics; and a cluster citing the private entrepreneurial scientist C. Venter. These results surely reflect the differences in pre-contexts between nanotechnology and synthetic biology. The prior ELSI research legacy is providing an important pathway for current synthetic biology societal research, but comparison suggests that gaps are also present. Relatively less influential in synthetic biology social science are papers by, and debates about, scientists with visionary perspectives. Also, several social science knowledge bases evident in the nanotechnology map are not yet widely present in synthetic biology research, particularly public perception and deliberation, scientometrics (including quantitative analyses of research and innovation trajectories), and economics. The results suggest that there is little overlap to date in the knowledge sources used in early nanotechnology social science and in early synthetic biology social science. Not only do the two use different sets of knowledge sources but they have few shared papers in common.

Figure 1. Nanotechnology social science citation clusters.

Source: Analysis of Web of Science & Scopus, 308 nanotechnology social science articles (7248 backward citations) through 2007 and 314 synthetic biology social science articles (8661 backward citations) through May 2014. Analysis conducted using VantagePoint text-mining software. For further discussion of methods and results, see Shapira, Youtie, and Porter (2010) and Youtie, Shapira, and Li (2014).

Figure 2. Synthetic biology social science citation clusters.

Source: Analysis of Web of Science & Scopus, 308 nanotechnology social science articles (7248 backward citations) through 2007 and 314 synthetic biology social science articles (8661 backward citations) through May 2014. Analysis conducted using VantagePoint text-mining software. For further discussion of methods and results, see Shapira, Youtie, and Porter (2010) and Youtie, Shapira, and Li (2014).

It is evident from this analysis that synthetic biology societal research already has traction and direction. There is an established trajectory, rooted in a prior ELSI research framework, which facilitates integration between social science and biological science researchers and provides a good basis for bioethics and related work. Our reflections on the start-up of nanotechnology social science research nevertheless suggest that synthetic biology social science might be enriched through additional attention to innovation analysis, public perception, and debate about science visions, among other topics for research and knowledge development. We should consider whether there is an opening for synthetic biology social science research to incorporate greater outward-looking, engagement, anticipatory, and downstream application perspectives that will help to build a wider platform for insights into current and future societal impacts.

ORCID

Philip Shapira http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2488-5985

Notes on contributors

Philip Shapira is Professor of Innovation, Management and Policy at the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, and Professor of Public Policy at Georgia Institute of Technology. He is associated with the Center for Nanotechnology in Society (CNS-ASU) and leads the responsible research and innovation component of SYNBIOCHEM (Centre for Synthetic Biology of Fine and Specialty Chemicals, University of Manchester).

Jan Youtie is Director of Policy Research Services and Principal Research Associate at Georgia Tech's Enterprise Innovation Institute and an adjunct with Georgia Tech's School of Public Policy. She is a founder of the Georgia Tech Program in Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy and serves as Co-Principal Investigator of the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University.

Yin Li is a doctoral candidate in science and innovation policy at the Georgia Tech School of Public Policy and a graduate research assistant with the Georgia Tech Program in Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy. He served as the China country correspondent for European Commission's ERAWATCH Policy Network. His research focuses on industrial innovation in emerging technologies and regions.

Additional information

Funding

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation [0531194 and 0937591] (Center for Nanotechnology in Society CNS-ASU); and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council [BB/M017702/1] (Centre for Synthetic Biology of Fine and Specialty Chemicals, University of Manchester).