The continued development and growing opportunities for commercialization of key enabling technologies (e.g., nanotechnology, synthetic biology, biomaterials) raises fundamental environmental health and safety (EHS) challenges for regulators in various governments. Even though existing practices for risk assessment and management (RA&M) are applicable to these technologies, their implementation requires information that is difficult to obtain given the limited availability of quantitative data to populate models corresponding to material exposure, hazard, and consequences.
To facilitate regulatory decision making for emerging technology research and innovation and account for corresponding EHS risks, a comprehensive risk governance (RG) framework must account for both qualitative and quantitative data under high uncertainty and local/regional requirements for technology governance.
The Society for Risk Analysis Policy Forum: Risk Governance for Key Enabling Technologies (SRA Forum) will provide discussion of current initiatives that are centered on refining the risk governance of emerging technologies through the integration of traditional risk analytic tools alongside considerations of social and economic concerns. Such an approach will help account for objective and subjective information alike in order to foster effective governance for emerging technologies with uncertain and potentially consequential risks. The Forum will develop summaries of current activities of multiple efforts in the United States, European Union, Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere, and will indicate opportunities for future meetings and research.
