The Study “Nanotechnologies from consumers’ point of view – What consumers know and what they would like to know” was published on 24th April 2012 in Bern. The key result: Nano-Hype is fading out
Especially the consumers’ knowledge about nanotechnologies’ fields of application has decreased. On average, the respondents could name two applications less than in 2008.
Fonte: NanoForum
On behalf of the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health, Bern, and the Risk Dialogue Foundation, St. Gallen, researchers from the Universities of Stuttgart and St. Gallen conducted 100 in-depth interviews in Germany and in Switzerland and compared the results with the previous consumer study from 2008.
Especially the consumers’ knowledge about nanotechnologies’ fields of application has decreased. On average, the respondents could name two applications less than in 2008.
However, their descriptions of the risk debate have become more precise. Accordingly, the consumers showed more uncertainties in their judgements.
40 % of the respondents concluded that nanotechnologies have disappeared from the public discussion and offered their own hypotheses for this: one half thinks that “nano never worked” and is therefore no more promoted; others guess that “nano is a topic for research” and that practical applications are not yet on the market. The good news at the end: still, even two thirds would like to try nanoproducts out.
The communication strategies of industry, public institutions and scientists need to be evaluated here: “Companies, public organisations, NGOs and, most of all, the scientists have all communicated far too little. The uncertainty among the consumers has clearly grown”, counts as one of the core findings of the study, Antje Grobe said.
The communication strategies of industry, public institutions and scientists need to be evaluated here: “Companies, public organisations, NGOs and, most of all, the scientists have all communicated far too little. The uncertainty among the consumers has clearly grown”, counts as one of the core findings of the study, Antje Grobe said.
It is also alarming that nanotechnologies’ benefits are mostly associated with saving time on cleaning. “If the majority of consumers associate nanotechnologies’ benefits with cleaning their cars or bathrooms only, communicating innovation has clearly failed”, the researchers stressed.
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Fonte: NanoForum
