IGERT: Assessing the Implications of Emerging Technologies: A Graduate Research and Training Program

普适计算、基因工程和纳米技术等领域的技术正在以惊人的速度发展。对新兴技术的经济、安全、环境和文化影响的理解没有跟上步伐。决策者通常将战略建立在对技术变革的性质和影响的未陈述的预期之上。由于预测误差是地方性的，分析师经常依赖隐含的假设来降低他们受到批评的脆弱性。相比之下，该计划明确确定了新兴技术影响的不确定领域，并制定了减少不确定性的战略。科学和政策领域通常在划定冲突线后走到一起。技术的创造者专注于眼前的开发和应用问题，而政策分析人士只有在争议爆发后才会评估技术变革的更广泛影响。相比之下，当选择更多、利益不那么根深蒂固、政策尚未到位时，该计划会评估知识。这个IGERT项目训练研究生及早明确地接触普遍存在的不确定性，这种不确定性在技术评估练习中往往得不到承认。它的特点是：(1)具有互补专业知识的受训人员，包括来自技术与政策计划的工程师、来自政治学的社会科学家，以及来自科学、技术和社会计划的人文主义者；(2)综合课程，包括三门新的核心课程，以培养评估技术变革的经济、安全、环境、社会和伦理后果的方法和实质性能力；(3)由教职员工和学生组成的多学科小组，以开发和测试用于培训和设置学生研究的方法。这些专题讨论会包括对过去新兴技术的回顾分析和对纳米技术、无处不在的计算和基因工程的前瞻性分析，第四项技术将在稍后选定；以及(4)IGERT研讨会，以加强专题讨论会和课程，学员、教职员工之间进行密集互动。智力优势：该计划寻求在三个领域产生知识。(1)实质性：确定关于新兴技术影响的已知和未知因素；以及回溯以确定目前的行动，以改进未来的应对措施，包括针对减少不确定性的研究。(2)程序性和体制性：确定使用关于当前技术影响的新信息的制约因素；促进公共和私营机构适应新信息。(3)方法：开发整合形式方法和定性方法的方法；并利用对过去新兴技术的研究来改进对当前新兴技术的反应。广泛影响：方法和实质性成果将通过研究生安置、学术出版物和会议，以及通过麻省理工学院国会工作人员关于科学和技术问题的研讨会来分发。此外，政府、企业和非政府组织参与该项目将有助于纠正学术盲目，丰富研究生教育，并使学院以外的世界参与进来。来自国务院和国防部、美国环保局、联合国、高盛、福特汽车、AFL-CIO和环境防务部门的高级工作人员已经表示有兴趣参加小组和研究小组。IGERT是一个NSF范围的计划，旨在应对培养具有跨学科背景、选定学科的深厚知识以及满足未来职业需求所需的技术、专业和个人技能的美国博士科学家和工程师的挑战。该项目旨在通过建立创新的研究生教育和培训新模式，在超越传统学科界限的合作研究的肥沃环境中，催化研究生教育的文化变革。在该计划的第六个年头，由NSF支持的共同跨越科学和工程领域的项目将被授予机构奖项。

Technologies in areas such as ubiquitous computing, genetic engineering, and nanotechnologies are developing at extraordinary rates. Understanding of economic, security, environmental, and cultural implications of emerging technologies has not kept pace. Decision makers typically base strategies on unstated expectations regarding the nature and effects of technological change. Because forecasting errors are endemic, analysts often rely on implicit assumptions to reduce their vulnerability to criticism. By contrast, this program explicitly identifies areas of uncertainty about effects of emerging technologies and develops strategies to mitigate uncertainty. Scientific and policy spheres typically come together after lines of conflict are drawn. Creators of technologies focus on immediate issues of development and application, while policy analysts assess the broader implications of technological change only after controversy has flared. By contrast, this program appraises knowledge when options are greater, interests are less entrenched, and policies are not yet locked into place. This IGERT program trains graduate students to engage early and explicitly with the pervasive uncertainty that is often under recognized in technology assessment exercises. It features: (1) Trainees with Complementary Expertise, including engineers from the Technology and Policy Program, social scientists from Political Science, and humanists from the Science, Technology and Society Program; (2) Integrated Curriculum with three new core courses to develop methodological and substantive competencies in evaluating economic, security, environmental, societal, and ethical consequences of technical change; (3) Multidisciplinary Panels of faculty and students to develop and test methods used in training and set student research. The panels feature retrospective analysis of past emerging technologies and prospective analysis of nanotechnologies, ubiquitous computing, and genetic engineering, with a fourth technology to be selected later; and (4) IGERT Seminars to reinforce the panels and courses with intensive interaction among trainees, faculty and staff.Intellectual Merit: The program seeks to generate knowledge in three domains. (1) Substantive: identify knowns and unknowns on implications of emergent technologies; and backcast to identify present actions to improve future responses, including targeting research to reduce uncertainty. (2) Procedural and institutional: identify constraints on use of emerging information on effects of current technologies; and foster adaptation to emerging information by public and private institutions. (3) Methodological: develop ways of integrating formal and qualitative methods; and for using research on past emergent technologies to improve responses to current emergent technologies.Broader Impact: Methods and substantive findings will be distributed through graduate student placements, academic publications and conferences, and via MIT Congressional Staff Seminars on science and technology issues. In addition, government, business, and NGO participation in the project will serve to check on academic blindness, to enrich graduate education, and to engage the world beyond the academy. Senior staff from the Departments of State and Defense, EPA, the UN, Goldman Sachs, Ford Motor, AFL-CIO, and Environmental Defense have expressed interest in participating in panels and research groups.IGERT is an NSF-wide program intended to meet the challenges of educating U.S. Ph.D. scientists and engineers with the interdisciplinary background, deep knowledge in a chosen discipline, and the technical, professional, and personal skills needed for the career demands of the future. The program is intended to catalyze a cultural change in graduate education by establishing innovative new models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries. In this sixth year of the program, awards are being made to institutions for programs that collectively span the areas of science and engineering supported by NSF.