A newly launched study of nano futures at the Gothenburg Research Institute will include as an investigator former CNS-UCSB postdoctoral fellow Mikael Johannson. As explained on a brochure for the study, "The project aims to explore nanotechnology as an emergent policy-driven techno-scientific movement of innovation. It will investigate how various actors frame 'nano futures' in terms of risk, hope, benefit and promise and how they reflect upon ethical aspects and the social benefits of knowledge."

An anthropologist, Johansson worked with both IRG1 (Origins, Institutions, and Communities) and IRG3 (Risk Perception and Social Response) while at UC Santa Barbara for the 2009-2010 academic year, conducting ethnographic field research of the university's nanoscientists.