2. Ethics or politics of nanotechnology?

2.1 Integrating ethics: a political commitment

NST thus seem to stand out from previous waves of technology by their explicit effort to integrate ethical aspects upstream, right from the laboratory research stage. Part of the budgets of NST research funding programs is thus devoted to their "accompaniment" by SHS. From 2006 to 2012, the US National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) allocated $35 million to ELSI (Ethical, Legal and Societal Impacts) research, i.e. 2.1% of its budget over this period. In France, the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) funding program for nanotechnologies (PNANO, which became P3N and then P2N) initially included an "impacts" section devoted to "ethical, societal and health aspects", and the Centre de Compétence Cnano Île-de-France funds research and...