IRG 1 -- Exploring Nanotechnology's Origins, Institutions, and Communities: A Ten Year Experiment in Large Scale Collaborative STS Research

IRG 2 -- Globalization and Nanotechnology: The Role of State Policy and International Collaboration

IRG 3 -- Understanding Nanotechnologies' Risks and Benefits: Emergence, Expertise & Upstream Participation

UCSB's Center for Nanotechnology in Society (CNS-UCSB), funded as a National Center by the US National Science Foundation in 2005, constitutes an unparalleled national commitment to research and education intended to enhance responsible development of sophisticated materials and technologies seen as central to the nation's economic future. After more than a decade of funding, CNS-UCSB provides a deep understanding of the relationship between technological innovation and social change, illustrated by an unrivaled set of scholarly, education and societal outcomes. These outcomes were largely the work of three meain Interdisciplinary Research Groups (IRGs): 1)Origins, Institutions and Communities; 2)Globalization and Nanotechnology; 3)Risk Perception and Social Response.

In advancing a role for the social, economic and behavioral sciences in understanding and promoting development of equitable and sustainable technological innovation, CNS-UCSB serves as a solid framework for future social science/science & engineering (S&E)  collaborations at the national center scale. Indeed, successful development of the transformative technologies anticipated by the country's leaders depends on systematic knowledge about complex societal as well as technical factors. 

Toward this end, each of the three IRG's has generated a Synthesis Report on the cumulative scholarly results and broader impacts of their nearly 11 years of programmatic research, education and engagement.