On statistical framing of emerging technologies - A case of nanotechnology in Russia

Continual emergence of new technologies has been accepted as one of the pillars of innovation-based economic growth. Their development and dissemination within the different sectors of economy bring together various actors and require elaboration of indicators enabling to follow this evolution and to measure economic, societal, and environmental impacts. Despite the number of statistical data on S&T development available across countries there is lack of knowledge about the evolution and impact of new technologies.

The paper provides a brief overview of the main challenges for measurement of emerging technologies, world practice and national state of the art in developing nanotechnology statistics as well as recent findings from public opinion polls, drawing a different picture of technological growth. While statistical data describes financial flows that allows eliciting key actors of the nanotechnology development process and give information on the direct economic impacts (e.g. in terms of sales, employment in nanotechnology related sectors, etc.), results of the recent public opinion polls summarizing expectations from this rapidly evolving area as well as personal experiences and perception of possible risks.

Bringing these observations into a wider social context it is argued that statistics provides a basic vocabulary for interaction of different expert groups and decision-makers, forcing institutionalization process of nanotechnologies through negotiations on basic definitions, classifications and key indicators actors in the field. The key question then concerns measurability of emerging technologies ante omnia in terms of economics, while taking into account findings from surveys on social aspects of technology development can help policymakers to provide better conditions for wider acceptance and legitimating further regulation of the evolving S&T areas.