In this IEEE Spectrum Nanotechnology blog piece, Dexter Johnson laments that the European Union is once again employing another public outreach program on nanotechnology. The new one is called Nanochannels, which was preceded by Nanologue and ObservatoryNANO, two other efforts designed to either inform the public, or government, industry and finance decision makers, about issues pertaining to nanotechnology. Johnson notes that Nanochannels appears to be similar to the United Kingdom project Nano&Me, except that project had a budget of US$124,000 and Nanochannels received US$1.27 million. Johnson thinks that kind of money should at least warrant a website, but instead, there is just a Facebook page. He concludes: “You know the EU might take a page from the US government in its nanotechnology outreach strategy and just start getting serious about the subject. Just because some groups have decided that juvenile discourse is the way to address the topic of nanotechnology doesn’t mean that governments should embark on a children’s-book approach to the subject to get it all sorted.”
