Abstract
What is nanotechnoscience? What are the characteristic features of nanotechnoscience? How do the practicing scientists and engineers, that is, practitioners label their work? How do they see the relationship between science and technology given the fast emerging research area of nanoscience and nanotechnology? Do they still celebrate the differences between these two? Is the relationship between them undergoing a change? Although there are a few scholarly articles available on understanding the concept of “nanotechnoscience,” there is almost no empirical study conducted so far to understand the perspectives of the practitioners. This paper, therefore, focuses on understanding the concept and characteristic features of nanotechnoscience deriving from an in-depth interview-based empirical study among 58 practitioners. The study found about 10 characteristic features of technoscience that were reflected in the research work and perspectives of the practitioners. The technoscientific features drawn from this study could be applied to other emerging technoscience areas.
1. Introduction
Multi-sited, interdisciplinary studies of technoscience would always have been interesting, but now they are especially needed (Anderson, 2002: 652). Although a limited number of scholarly works devoted to understanding the concept of nano(technoscience) are available (Latour, 1987; Tiles and Oberdiek, 1995; Anderson, 2002; Ihde and Selinger, 2003; Bensaude-Vincent, 2004; Nordmann, 2004, 2008; Doubleday, 2007; Shapin, 2008; Gorokhov, 2009), to date there has been no empirical study conducted to determine the perceptions of the practitioners working in the area of nanotechnoscience, regarding the relationship between nanoscience and nanotechnology. Most of the studies considered either what “non-scientists” think about nanotechnology or how nanoresearchers perceive certain societal issues (Bainbridge, 2002; Gaskell et al., 2005; Petersen et al., 2009). Therefore, it is imperative to understand the research area of nanotechnoscience from the practitioners’ perspectives.
India is a growing economy and Indian practitioners are recognized as an integral part of the global scientific community since their publications, intellectual interactions through conferences and seminars, research projects, etc. are influenced by the global standards and most of them travel throughout the globe to interact with their peers. Further, many developed countries have allocated significant amounts of funding for nanotechnoscience research. Although India is considered as a developing country, the Indian government through programs such as the Nano Science and Technology Initiative (NSTI) and the Nanomission has allocated a major funding (approximately 200 million USD for five years starting from 2007) to nanotechnoscience research. Even though the present study considered only Indian nanoresearchers because of access issues, the research questions that were raised and addressed in this study were universal in nature. The technoscientific features found in this study could be similar to those of other countries with little variation.
In India there is very limited government support for setting up companies for the development and manufacture of technologies, for example in the form of loans or tax benefits (Prasad, 2005). The Indian research system was predominantly publicly funded. Most of the research was done in academic settings and, therefore, the academic practitioners had focused more on fundamental research than pursuing patent/application-oriented research. In India there were no technology transfer offices in the universities, unlike in several developed countries, to facilitate technology-oriented research. But the research area of nanotechnoscience seems to be taking a different path overcoming the preexisting barriers, which I detail in this paper.
Before proceeding further to discuss my study findings, I provide a little background to the Indian nanotechnoscience research scenario. During 1990 to 1995, practitioners in only five institutions in India had started their research in the area of nanotechnoscience (with that label). In other countries too this research started around the same time (Singer et al., 2005; Goldenberg, 2007; Masami et al., 2007; Mills, 2007). Over the next five years, that is, between 1996 and 2001, most of the institutions throughout India started working in this area. Between 2002 and 2006, the research activities in this area increased further than in the earlier time periods.
This paper is divided into three parts. Section 2 describes the nature and characteristic features of technoscience deriving from the schema provided by Tiles and Oberdiek (1995). In Section 3, I explain the methodology that I have employed to address the research questions raised at the beginning of this paper. Sections 4–6 discuss the findings of the study showing the continuum from science to technology in nanoscience and nanotechnology research and some more characteristic features of technoscience that evolved during the study, along with the features provided by Tiles and Oberdiek.
2. What is technoscience?
In the discipline of the history of science and technology, scholars tend to agree that the relationship between science and technology has been viewed in the light of a “linear model.” According to Krige (2006: 265), [a] linear model sees basic or fundamental scientific research as the source of technological innovation. This view of the social importance of basic science was enthusiastically embraced by the scientific community, which sought to achieve permanent support for science. This model is applied in two ways: downstream and upstream. When it looks downstream from the process of knowledge production it suggests that its output, new scientific knowledge, is an essential ingredient for technological innovation. The other looks upstream, as it were, and focuses on the industrial inputs needed to produce new knowledge . . . However, the linear model was extraordinarily difficult to prove.
The relationship between science and technology has been like a rollercoaster ride. At certain times science was considered to be the knowledge upon which technology stood, at other times science was thought to be technology-driven, and at times both are portrayed as having their independent existence and knowledge base (Wise, 1985; Kline, 1995). In an increasing number of fields it no longer makes sense to try to distinguish between pure and applied science or between science and technology (Tiles and Oberdiek, 1995). The term “technoscience” was introduced by Latour (1987). Haraway (1997) used this concept to explain the technological constitution of the objects of scientific research. As soon as this new concept came into existence, it became possible to consider all of the experimental sciences as technoscience. Perhaps, all science has always been technoscience (Nordmann, 2004). Instead of seeking to humbly understand and explain a given nature, science now openly embraces the project of overhauling or transforming nature, of shaping the world atom-by-atom (Roco et al., 1999; Nordmann, 2004). Research that aims for conceptual as well as physical mastery of a certain territory, domain, or size regime, is interested neither only in theory nor merely in novel devices and substances (Nordmann, 2004).
Characteristic features of technoscience
The term “technoscience” has diffused widely from its initial Latourian origin and there are now numerous definitions to choose from. My study of practitioners’ views was not designed to support one particular definition of technoscience, but to explore the different ways nanoscience and nanotechnology are meaningful/practicable among researchers. Thus, to explore the characteristic features of nanotechnoscience, I have employed the schema given by Tiles and Oberdiek (1995) for an initial frame of reference. Since it was an exploratory study, some more features were also evolved during the study. According to Tiles and Oberdiek (1995), individual scientists have often carried out research without concern for its applications, being motivated by the intellectual challenge it presents (intellectual pursuits). But in general, much of what is funded and undertaken as basic research is not undertaken simply for the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake but with a view to creating a detailed knowledge base necessary to mediate between fundamental scientific theorizing and the kind of practical projects it suggests might be possible (potential application). Further, basic science research depends on practical activities and technical skills, and technology too depends upon a theoretical model to develop. In this sense science and technology are dependent upon each other. Thus, there is no sharp cut-off between science and technology. Tiles and Oberdiek also mention another feature of technoscience, that is, the transition between laboratory and field. According to them, what is normally conducted inside a laboratory is not automatically successful in the field, that is, in the practical world. There are always factors in the field that do not resemble the laboratory setting. In order for a technology to succeed and sustain in the field, the laboratory setting and the science underlying the technology have to be constantly modified to accommodate the field.
Characteristic features of nanotechnoscience
A prominent, perhaps defining feature of “nanotechnology” is its interest from the very beginning in evaluating its own promise and peril (Nordmann, 2011). Nanoscience and nanotechnology are about understanding the behavior of matter at the nanoscale (10-9 meter) and the precise and purposeful manipulation of matter at that scale. This interdisciplinary research area borrows complementary tools and concepts from multiple disciplines such as physical, chemical and life sciences, and several engineering fields. However, the definition of disciplinary boundaries, nature and scope, methods, and aims of nanoscience and nanotechnology have been objects of a long debate in the scientific community. For example, the famous debate between Smalley and Drexler brought out two cultures of nanotechnology (Bensaude-Vincent, 2004), where Smalley and Drexler have defined nanotechnology differently, informed from their disciplinary background and training (chemist vs. engineer). According to Bueno (2004), Drexler’s vision for nanotechnology is one of atomic precision and perfect and complete control over molecular reactions. Smalley’s vision, in turn, insists on the production of detectable and controllable phenomena, and takes as a crucial part of scientific activity the manipulation and stabilization of the phenomena. Nanotechnology is, therefore, a field of knowledge, a sphere of scientific and engineering activity, and a concrete methodological position, in which controlling and restructuring of matter at the nanoscale is a necessary element (Gorokhov, 2009). Here science and technology, understanding and intervening, and prediction and control go hand-in-hand. Therefore, one finds a continuum from science to technology in this research area.
3. Methodology
I downloaded about 3,000 scientific articles in the area of nanoscience and nanotechnology from the Sci-Finder database 1 published in peer-reviewed journals from India between 1990 (there was a lack of articles prior to 1990) and 2006. I considered papers with the word “nano” appearing either in the title or in the abstract. Using the name and the affiliation of the author(s) in the list of publications, I identified the practitioners (graduate students, postdoctoral researchers and laboratory technicians were excluded from the list so as to include only experienced practitioners). The final list consisted of about 120 practitioners. Further, I employed multiple stratified random sampling to identify nearly 50% of these practitioners (58) as my respondents. The departmental affiliation, types of institutions, disciplinary background, age, and sex of the practitioners varied. My sample was drawn from institutions such as universities, national laboratories, independent research and development (R&D) institutions, and Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs); departments such as physics, chemistry, materials science, polymer science, biochemistry, metallurgy and materials engineering, environmental engineering, chemical engineering, and mechanical engineering; age group—52% were in the age group above or equal to 50, and 48% in the age group below 50; and sex—7 female (very few) and 51 male practitioners. I also interacted with two government officials who were in charge of the government initiated programs to fund this technoscientific research in India. Some of the practitioners in this sample were also members of the executive committee that regulated and decided the structure and allocation of funding for this research in India. To gain insights into different aspects of the culture of technoscientific research in India, I visited 21 laboratories between December 2006 and November 2007 and conducted in-depth face-to-face interviews with the practitioners.
I used an interview guide. Some of the open-ended and broad questions such as: “What is nanoscience and what is nanotechnology?,” “Is there any difference between these two?,” “Where would you locate your work?,” “Do you have patents and have you sold any patent to any industry?,” “Do you collaborate with any industry?,” “Does your work have potential industrial application?,” “Have you developed any prototype in the laboratory?,” “Have you developed any commercial product?,” etc. stimulated the initial discussions with the practitioners. Each question above was associated with a theme/issue and during analyses responses of the practitioners to these questions were combined. During interviews, practitioners were encouraged to elaborate on different issues as much as they could without any interruption. Duration of the interviews ranged from about 1 hour to 2 hours. Interviews were tape recorded and fully transcribed later. To protect the practitioners’ confidentiality, names are not used with quotes throughout this paper. Besides conducting interviews, I also carried out content analyses of titles of papers to know more about the kind of research that the practitioners were involved in. Below I discuss the findings of my study.
4. Continuum from science to technology in nanotechnoscience
A pattern was observed in the study, which suggested a continuum from science to technology. This was mostly evident from the responses of the practitioners while they were self-categorizing their own research area. Fifty-eight percent of practitioners in the study claimed their work to be in the area of nanoscience, 28% in both nanoscience and nanotechnology, 8% did not find any difference between nanoscience and nanotechnology, while 6% located themselves in the area of nanotechnology. The responses indicate that majority of the practitioners in the study seemed to maintain the distinction between nanoscience and nanotechnology. At the same time, a significant proportion (28%) of the practitioners also seemed to question the distinction between the two. However, I observed varieties of interesting responses. Below I quote the practitioners starting from one who claimed his work to be in the area of nanoscience to one who claimed his work to be in the area of nanotechnology.
A practitioner who located his work in the area of nanoscience said: [I locate my work in] nanoscience. I am from physics department. Here I am interested in the fundamental modification of properties, magnetic clusters. If people can make some application out of it, some practical applications, then fine.
A practitioner located in IIT, Delhi, started with nanoscience and then moved into nanotechnology. He explained the process as follows: One professor in a particular department can publish in the area of nanoscience, but will have difficulty in converting it to product and then going into market. Earlier most of the products were produced in the factory and academicians used to study mostly for their academic purpose. But nano has lot of potential in generating wealth, because not only this will replace products, it sometimes also will solve some unsolved problems.
Another practitioner, from a chemical engineering department, said: I started with nanoscience, like preparing the nanoparticles and how to control the size. Now I am moving into nanotechnology. I am also preparing super hydrophobic surface coatings. So right now, our main concern is to develop products from the particles that we produce. Now, I would put myself as nanotechnologist, but not 15 or 10 years back . . .
A practitioner from a materials engineering department said that he works in the borderline of nanoscience and nanotechnology. To quote: I am in the borderline, I am an applied researcher. So I develop something and try to apply that . . .
According to a chemist located in IIT, Bombay: I always try to bridge the gap between science and technology partly because, the area I work in, has lots of technological applications . . . When I do science, it is eventually with the purpose of developing some technology. In order to develop technology, you need to do good science . . .
Another practitioner, located in IIT, Madras, whose team launched the first product out of nanotechnology in the Indian market said: It is all a mix-science and technology. We try to look at nanoscience. Some of those findings that we made have impacts on industry. We therefore, looked at patents work and industries to come out with products. Now we have established a factory. I realized that if you develop something and keep it in the laboratory nothing worthwhile happens . . .
One practitioner claimed that in this research area it is meaningless to separate science and technology. According to him: This is something special to the area of nanoscience and nanotechnology. Whatever science development takes place it has already a technological angle into it. You are improving upon some existing things—materials and devices. So, the gap between science and technology is narrow here. Here, it is motivated by application. You can’t separate them . . .
Another chemist, located in one of the IITs, who claimed his work to be completely in the area of nanotechnology said: It is completely nanotechnology. I am not discovering anything scientifically new things. Science is the base on which technology stands.
Above quotes are in a continuum. It started with a practitioner claiming his work to be in the area of nanoscience. Following are two practitioners from two different departments (physics and chemical engineering) who initially started with nanoscience, but gradually moved to nanotechnology. It is worth mentioning that even though one of the practitioners was from a chemical engineering department, he still claimed his research to be in the area of nanoscience. The next practitioner claimed his work to be in the borderline of nanoscience and nanotechnology and another practitioner did not see any difference between these two. Some academic practitioners developed products in collaboration with some industries. The quoted practitioner whose group launched the first nano-enabled product in India claimed their work to be a combination of both nanoscience and nanotechnology. The last quote was from a practitioner located in a chemistry department, who claimed his work to be completely in the area of nanotechnology. Besides the practitioners who claimed their work to be in both nanoscience and nanotechnology, other practitioners quoted above (irrespective of their departmental affiliations and claim to be working either only in nanoscience or only in nanotechnology) had aimed for both nanoscience and nanotechnology at the same time. Instead of seeking to understand and explain a given nature, practitioners were involved with transforming nature.
One might think that until and unless the research work of a practitioner is applied, the work cannot be labeled as a technology. I would further correlate the above finding with responses from a question (“does your work have potential industrial application?”) asked during interviews. Almost all the practitioners claiming themselves as nanoscientists accepted that their work has potential industrial application. Therefore, the practitioners perceived their present research work as “tomorrow’s technology.” If the research of a practitioner located in an academic institution has potential industrial application, there will be a very thin line between pure science and applied science (technology) in their research perspective, irrespective of their claims to be considered as either a scientist or an engineer/technologist. Here one does not know where the science ends and where the technology begins. The process in which science and technology get merged, however, is far from straightforward. It has already been mentioned that the linear model of the relationship between science and technology is extraordinarily difficult to prove. In the present situation too this model could not be established because it is unclear whether science pushes technology or vice versa. Therefore, one needs to employ a concept such as “technoscience” to capture the dynamics of the relationship between nanoscience and nanotechnology which can be explained neither by using only the concept of “nanoscience” nor by using only the concept of “nanotechnology.”
5. Nanotechnoscience: Following the schema by Tiles and Oberdiek
Following the schema of Tiles and Oberdiek (1995) I discuss the characteristic features of nanotechnoscience from the findings of this study.
Intellectual pursuits
Individual practitioners or groups have often carried out research motivated by the intellectual challenge that it presents. In this study, I found several practitioners and groups pursuing their research to solve certain unsolved research questions possessing intellectual challenges. However, as mentioned earlier and discussed later, practitioners who claimed their research was only for intellectual pursuit also aimed for potential applications. I quote a practitioner, located in the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), Kolkata. According to him: We thought why not expand these channels as templates and the question was, can we grow nanowire or nanostructure of metals, oxides or sulphides within these channels? Fortunately, we are succeeding and made series of metallic nanowires. We also made CdS, PbS nanowires. All these show interesting properties because we were able to grow material in nanoscale dimension that can be exploited commercially . . .
Another practitioner, who claimed his work to be in the area of nanoscience, said: I am a research scientist, who generally goes for fundamental research. I would like to understand why these types of materials in this length scale [nano] behave so differently from other [materials at] atomic scale or bulk scale, what it is that produces the new properties? If someone can make use of it . . . it will be nice.
All the above quoted practitioners aimed to solve certain unresolved fundamental questions in science. At the same time they also aimed to discover some new properties, which could be exploited for potential application in the future.
Creating a detailed knowledge base
In general, much of what is funded and undertaken as basic research is not undertaken simply for the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake but with a view to creating a detailed knowledge base for future applications. This factor can be considered as a link between fundamental research and its applications. When a practitioner within an academic laboratory is pursuing “science” it is not just for the sake of knowledge gain or out of mere curiosity. Within the laboratory the practitioner is also involved with the aim of producing an end product, be that a fact, which can be employed to acquire a process leading to technological application, or an artifact, or a product.
According to a practitioner located in a university: If I want to find a suitable material, which is a potential candidate for a given application, I must have certain properties which are tailor-made for those applications. So, to make that you have to have a very deep basic understanding of the materials, then only you can devise and come up with the material which will have that property and can be used for that application.
One of the physicists said that knowledge production is the first step for any application-oriented research. According to her: Application requires first the knowledge and then what materials we are generating and then we try to understand properties of it [materials] utilizing that knowledge . . .
The practitioners quoted above were creating a detailed knowledge base which, according to them, was essential for any application of science in the future. They considered the knowledge or fundamental aspects of science as the base upon which stands the structure of technology.
Potential applications
Currently there are several potential and actual applications of nanoscience that have been realized (Roco et al., 1999; Brune et al., 2006). Creating a detailed knowledge base, which is discussed above, is a necessary step to mediate between fundamental scientific theorizing and the kind of practical projects it suggests might be possible. Even if a practitioner claimed his/her work was being done to understand the fundamental aspects of nature, still he/she had some potential application of the research in mind. Here I provide specific examples with quotes to express the opinions of the practitioners.
The practitioner who was located in an academic institution having patents and several collaborations with industries said: All my funding came from industry—both Indian and abroad. In that sense, the kind of work we do is motivated by technology, but the kind of practice one would do in a laboratory [academics], there are many [ideas of] applied physics and chemistry involved in that . . . We are more into nanotechnology but we do some nanoscience too.
Another chemist located in a university said: Science contributes indirectly by contributing directly to technology. Seventy percent or eighty percent of work that we are doing here is basic science aspects of nanotechnology. Any worthwhile discovery that we make would have direct bearing on technical issues . . . People have made discoveries, which were used in technology, without even realizing at that time that it was important for applications . . .
So, even basic science research depends on practical activities and technical skills. In terms of the nature of these activities there is no sharp cut-off between pure and applied science or between science and engineering. In the present day context there are processes which do not possess clear features of “pure science” or “applied science” or “technology.” In the present scenario, understanding and intervening, and prediction and control go hand-in-hand.
Transition between laboratory and field
What is normally carried out inside a laboratory is not automatically successful in the field. There are always situations in the field that do not resemble the laboratory setting. In order for a technology to become successful and sustain in the field, the laboratory setting and the science underlying a technology have to be constantly modified to accommodate the field. A real life situation in miniature is created inside the laboratory setting and experiments are conducted to test the usability of a particular product or process. But it may not be true that laboratory tests are always successful. There is constantly a transition between laboratory and field in “field trials.” During field trials, if a technology is not successful in the field, a practitioner goes back to the laboratory to determine where the theory or experiments underlying that technology went wrong and sees how s/he can modify the processes involved with it to make it successful. Below I quote such instances. According to a practitioner located in a state university: I prepared the hydrogel nanoparticle. I patented it [USA patent]. . . . So, I sold the patent to a company . . . The company wanted to encapsulate the thing [hydrogel nanoparticle] for their own drug. But their drug was not soluble in water. So, they got back to me. Then I searched the literature and made another formulation and it worked very nicely. I gave it to them, they did experiment with animals and they got fantastic results. Now they are selling the drug in the market . . .
The practitioner quoted above provided a description of a specific technoscientific practice where the science goes hand-in-hand with the technology. There exists a synergy between science and technology to get a good result. The process started with science and ended with a technology. Again in order to make a technology more effective, science played a very important role. I cite another example where field trials played an important role in the successful implementation of a technology. According to a practitioner: We have just developed a system for testing drinking water for potability. It has sensors and it sees the things according to UNO norms. The device is now ready to go to the market. A layperson can use this [device] unlike in earlier days [when] you needed to send the samples to experts, which was expensive. The idea is to make it low cost and portable. You can take it to rural area. In fact, we have been exhibiting the device for the last two years in various stages of development. We have got a very good response in Kisan Melas [agricultural exhibitions]. That’s how we thought of extending it to soil testing . . .
In the above case, the practitioner and his group had been testing the device for two years in order to make it ready to release to the market. They also wanted to extend this technology to other systems based on their successful field trials. Therefore, the success of a technology is dependent on several factors including the science underlying the technology. In the following section, I discuss some more features that evolved during the study, which provide more features of a technoscience.
6. Added features of technoscientific research
Besides the features provided by Tiles and Oberdiek (1995), some additional features of technoscience have also evolved during the study. I categorize these features as follows: ongoing projects having potential applications, prototypes developed in laboratories, patents, developing useful products, engineering sciences, and in research work of practitioners. Below I explain each of these technoscientific features with quotes.
Ongoing projects having potential applications
This category is qualitatively different from the “potential applications” category mentioned earlier because, in the latter category practitioners considered that there were some potential applications of their research and others could utilize it for applications. But in the “ongoing projects having potential applications” category, the practitioners themselves were already working on projects, which they were convinced could be applied to arrive at a process or a product. One of the practitioners from the physics department at IIT, Delhi, had been working on switchable mirrors. According to him: Switchable mirror is where you can change the properties of a layer from a mirror like [object] and make it transparent by changing something. For example, we can make a window of a room, which is reflecting in the summer and without changing the material the same window will become transparent in the winter. Light and heat in winter can enter the room and in summer, only the light will enter and heat will be reflected out. It is a coating made up of nanoparticles . . .
Another practitioner, located in a state university, had been approached by many industries and was in the process of developing some products. According to him: We are developing sensors, nanocrystalline solar cells, etc. These are not bio-sensors but alcohol detection sensors, hazardous gas sensors for carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, etc. Suppose some companies are claiming that their tea is very good, then with our sensor we can judge the quality of the tea . . . A good sensor must have three properties—sensitivity, repeatability, and the value of the signal . . .
In another case a practitioner located in IIT, Bombay, had several projects and was more interested in traditional Indian medicine and was trying to explore it from a nano-perspective. According to the practitioner: We have several projects in connection to nano. We are looking at drug delivery systems using nanoparticles. The other area is traditional medicines. We have been looking at Ayurvedic Vasmas [metallic preparations used to make traditional Indian medicines] from modern science view point. Nanotechnology plays a role in the mechanism of action of Vasmas in Ayurvedic science. Then we are looking at making artificial organs using nanotechnology. We have nanocomposites which is a bone substitute. We made synthetic bone which works very well in animal models. We hope to reach human trial in another year or so. We are also working on minimal invasive surgery transpathy devices wherein we pass this device through artery or vein and use this to close holes in hearts, particularly for new born . . .
There were a lot of ongoing research projects undertaken by practitioners irrespective of their departmental and institutional affiliations, having several potential applications. Most of the practitioners predicted that their fundamental research could be utilized for making products which would be beneficial for the society and some of them further advanced in that endeavor to make certain usable products.
Prototypes developed in laboratories
Worldwide many more areas may be influenced by nanoscience and nanotechnology, but there will be significant challenges in scaling-up production from the research laboratory to mass manufacturing (Royal Academy of Engineering and Royal Society, 2004). Even so, some of the practitioners in this study were working towards developing different processes and products in the form of prototypes in laboratories to address the challenges in scaling-up production. Below I mention some such prototypes developed by the practitioners in Indian laboratories.
A practitioner, whose group had developed a prototype p-n junction said: We are building p-n junction. There is much difference in building something in laboratory scale and then transferring them to technology. That is again a bridge. In the laboratory scale it is successful . . . Now we have to find out some suitable people or company who can process technology in larger way. In 1 cm by 1 cm area we have already fabricated the device . . .
One group of practitioners, working in one of the IITs, was ready to take their recently developed low cost biosensor “Isens,” which detects heart attacks well in advance, to the market by the end of the year 2008. According to one of the practitioners: Field trials will not take time since it is only a diagnostic tool. . . . We are talking to some Indian and multinational companies and a company in the UK to commercialize the product. In other words, this indigenously developed device reduces the cost of myocardial infarction diagnosis by a factor of 20 compared to what is presently available in the market. Not only the cost is very low . . . the sensor also detects and warns a person about the possible acute myocardial infarction up to six months in advance.
These prototypes act as a stepping stone toward developing a technology out of fundamental laboratory research which could be exploited in making useful products. In spite of having difficulties in mass scale production and a lack of institutional encouragement in India, Indian practitioners ventured into production processes in this area.
Patents
Filing patents in the area of nanotechnoscience was not a dominant trend in India. Practitioners in my study had about 136 patents between 1990 (1997 to be precise because the first patent was received in 1997) and 2006 in the area of nanotechnoscience. Since 2002 there was more or less a constant increase in the number of patents. The number increased to 48 in 2005 from 15 in 2004 (more than a threefold increase) and went a little down in 2006. The steady increase in numbers of patents in this area might be due to the government initiatives taken to promote nanotechnoscience research in India. Dominantly the practitioners had Indian patents (approximately 62%) followed by US patents (approximately 22%), and then by world patents (12.5%). If we consider the difference between the public funding versus industry-funded research, we have 83% of patents held by publicly funded institutions as opposed to only 17% held by industries. This further suggests that patents were mostly held by publicly funded academic institutions because Indian industries were not very active in nanotechnoscience R&D during the study. Some of the practitioners in this study were planning to file patents in the near future and some of them had already licensed their patents to industries located in India as well as other countries.
In spite of having some difficulties, Indian academic practitioners still pursued technology-oriented research and some of them had already sold their patents to industries. The government of India (the University Grants Commission), in order to encourage the practitioners located in Indian academia to pursue patent-oriented research, circulated a new official notice in May, 2008 informing all the academic institutions in India that a patent will be considered equivalent to a publication for the purpose of promotion from one academic position to a higher position.
Developing useful products
Products and materials stemming from nanotechnology have entered society at a rapid pace, with more than 1,000 consumer products on the market and many others in field or clinical trials (PEN, 2010). The Indian government was also enthusiastic about promoting product-oriented research and was looking forward to the development of useful products not only for India, but also for the global society. According to A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, who was the President of India during 2002–07: This will definitely . . . enable the scientific community, technological community, academicians, industrialists and venture capitalists to work together and provide cost effective quality products using nanotechnology to the global society at the right time.
2
Some academic practitioners in the study had developed some commercial products. The first useful nano-enabled product that was manufactured in India was a product that removes biological impurities from water. Nanosilver particles were used in this particular product to remove biological impurities from drinking water. According to the practitioner, whose group developed this product: [Company’s] product is right now in the stage of its conveyer belt, meaning that materials have been developed, product has been developed and the conveyer belt has to start moving, that is, product has to get launched. But at times industrialists would like to ask questions related to aesthetics, style, demand, color, appeal and all that . . . So they all are getting finalized right now. The product is ready, the materials are ready, and the factory is ready.
Keeping in view the needs of the country, several Indian institutions were in the process of developing products in priority areas such as water purification, healthcare, power or energy, and drug delivery systems. There were also several products on their way to the market during this study.
Engineering sciences
Deriving from Koyré’s (1948) position, Layton (1974) considered that technology generates its own independent rules, which come ultimately to constitute a body of technological theory. This body of knowledge is then transformed in a fundamental way under the influence of science as a result of which “engineering science” comes to play a major role. In this study most of the engineers located in several engineering departments labeled themselves as scientists rather than engineers. This situation leads one to consider the notion of “technological sciences” or “engineering sciences” put forth by Layton (1974). This notion of “engineering sciences” can be visualized as a type of technoscience where technology becomes an established science having its independent knowledge base and academic programs. In this study engineers located in academic institutions, having academic programs similar to those of other sciences, and identifying themselves as scientists, suggest the change from the traditional stereotypical notion of “science” and “technology.” In the given situation, science and technology merge to form a new entity called technoscience where both science and technology contribute to each other and coexist. According to an engineer: I am an engineer, but I think I am doing science. I know that technology is done being an engineer. But I don’t claim it . . .
There were not many academic degree programs offered by Indian institutions in the area of nanoscience and nanotechnology. Even so, in most of the institutions some aspect of nanotechnoscience was taught as a component of some degree or diploma courses and these were offered by both scientists and engineers. For example, most of the IITs and some universities had a nanotechnoscience component in their teaching curricula. Majority of the practitioners in this study were in favor of incorporating some component on nanotechnoscience into their teaching curricula.
The NSTI and even the Nanomission had provisions to support teaching programs and have recently (2008–09) funded some postgraduate programs in nanotechnoscience. They also have invited proposals from institutions in India to introduce teaching courses and degrees in nanoscience and nanotechnology. Since these programs are recent in their origin, it might take some more time to develop the infrastructure, to train technicians, and to train personnel to teach nanotechnoscience.
In research work of practitioners
In order to identify the application-oriented component in the research work of Indian practitioners, independent of their interviews, I carried out content analyses of titles of about 3,000 papers published by them between 1990 and 2006 in the area of nanotechnoscience. These analyses represent the work of Indian practitioners as a whole and do not take into consideration research work of individual practitioners. These analyses show the systems and materials investigated, characteristics and phenomena investigated, and the techniques employed by the practitioners. Between 1990 and 2006, practitioners were conducting their research on systems such as quantum dots, carbon nanotubes, ceramics, glass, nanocomposites, conducting polymers, thin films, fuel cells, semiconductors, light emitting devices (LEDs), titanium dioxide (TiO2), cadmium selenide (CdSe), single molecule transistors, and drug delivery systems. They were investigating the morphology and properties such as fluorescence, photoluminescence, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties, controlled release of drugs, and gene delivery. Throughout the 15-year period, practitioners were using a combination of both traditional techniques such as Raman spectroscopy, micellar synthesis, and X-ray diffraction, and modern techniques typical of nanotechnoscience research such as pulse electro-deposition, attrition milling, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, self-assembly, laser-induced etching, and spray-deposition. These analyses show that irrespective of their disciplinary and institutional affiliations, the practitioners were involved in both fundamental research and application-oriented research at the same time.
7. Discussion and conclusions
Although India is a developing country, the Indian government had allocated a major portion of funding to the nanotechnoscience research area like any other developed country. Most of the funding in this area was public funding and most of the research in this area was pursued by practitioners located in academia. However, this research area was about twenty years old and still developing. Therefore, it was unclear which development path this area would follow in the future. Given the structure of funding and government initiatives and policies, it was predicted that this dynamic research area is going to thrive for a long time.
Findings from this study suggest that the relationship between nanoscience and nanotechnology is undergoing a change which is different from the traditional notion of the relationship between “science” and “technology.” In the traditional notion both science and technology remained distinct and the practitioners also identified their work either with science or with technology at a time. At times science was seen as pushing technology and at some other times technology was considered as pushing science. Science and technology never appeared to have merged either in the work or in the minds of the practitioners. In the case of nanoscience and nanotechnology, we observed a continuum from science to technology. This unique situation cannot be explained by using only the concepts of “science” or “technology.” In this case the two were merging together to capture the dynamics of their relationship giving rise to the concept of nanotechnoscience. This changing relationship between science and technology is reflected in all the features of the technoscience described throughout this paper. Further, the results found that practitioners, irrespective of their claims to be a “scientist” or an “engineer,” had aimed at both “science” and “technology” at the same time. They were unable to dissociate one from the other. In each of the technoscientific features, practitioners aimed both for understanding and intervening, and for predicting and controlling nature at the same time. The distinction between “nature” and “culture” is constantly blurred in the research work and also in the minds of the practitioners. Therefore, it can be concluded that nanoscience and nanotechnology are not a science and a technology, but a combination of the two—a technoscience.
Unlike in some western countries such as the US, in India the academic institutions did not have a large number of technology transfer offices to facilitate the development of technology from their fundamental research work, with a few exceptions (for example, the Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer was established within IIT, Delhi in 1992 to facilitate technology transfer in the institution). The culture of Indian technoscience research is more academic-oriented. Despite all these factors, the Indian technoscience research area is now opening up and the government and even the practitioners have started to realize that it is imperative to develop and strengthen the country’s own technology. The Indian technoscience scenario is in transition and witnessing a substantial change. Given the new policy initiatives by the government to promote patents (giving equivalent weighting as to publications), to directly fund industries, and to strengthen the industry–academia partnership in the area of nanotechnoscience, which has never happened in the Indian scenario so far, one would expect some changes in this research setting in India in the near future. In addition, some academic institutions were also planning to initiate start-up companies to promote technology development. Through this empirical study, I presented both the characteristic features of nanotechnoscience in general, and the features in the context of a nation, that is India, in particular. Given the research agenda and international exposure and interaction of the Indian nanoresearchers, the technoscientific features observed in this study can be similar to those of other countries. With regard to the generalizability of the findings, it is inconclusive from the study to determine whether these features apply to any technoscience in general or are unique to nanotechnoscience. I purposefully refrained from comparing it with any other study results because to my knowledge, there is a lack of any other qualitative study to directly compare my study findings. The study results could be utilized to explore technoscientific features of other research areas such as biotechnology in the contexts of different countries.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
I am thankful to the Indian practitioners who participated in this study. I thank Prof. E. Haribabu and Prof. Prajit K. Basu, University of Hyderabad for their contributions to this study. I am also thankful to Prof. T.P. Radhakrishnan, Centre for Nanotechnology and Department of Chemistry, University of Hyderabad, India for helping me to analyze the results of content analyses presented in this paper.
