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As products of the 'new biotechnology,' genetically modified organisms have provoked a wide-ranging risk debate on potential harm, especially from herbicide-tolerant crops. In response to this legitimacy problem, the European Community adopted precautionary legislation, which left open the definition of environmental harm. When the U.K. proposed Europe-wide market approval of a herbicide-tolerant oilseed rape (canola), the proposal encountered dissent from some countries and environmentalist groups. Further debate on normative judgments became necessary to implement the precautionary legislation. In dispute were several regulatory boundaries--of administrative responsibility, causality, acceptability, and evidence. The boundary disputes expressed divergent framings of biotechnological risk, each with its implicit model of the socionatural order. In this way, the disputes can illuminate the sorts of risk framings that have already become embedded and standardized in other regulatory sectors., Herbicide-Tolerant Crops as a 'Risk' Problem People have felt both fascination and unease about biotechnological developments that promise--or threaten--to transform our world. Both the manner in which problems are defined [...]

Byline: Joanna Chataway, David Wield This paper examines R&D and strategic decision-making in firms, reviewing institutional and market constraints that act on the development of bio- and new materials technologies. The findings are assessed against the background of biotechnology and new materials as potential 'core technologies' that, combined with new socioeconomic norms, will make up a significantly different technoeconomic paradigm for the next century. The studies presented portray levels of complexity that highlight the variety of technological evolution. They also illustrate the need for improved methods of analysis that better integrate macro- and micro-levels of evolutionary theory.

Byline: Joanna Chataway, James Smith, David Wield Science and technology - and particularly biotechnology - is increasingly central to development agendas in Africa and elsewhere. Implicit within the centrality of science and technology lie a set of policy issues regarding how best to shape contextually appropriate, innovative and sustainable science and technological products in, with and for developing countries. The work of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) is a case in point and we draw our empirical material from the evolution of two biotech bovine vaccine development programmes housed in a CG Centre. In the paper, we seek to show that broadening our understanding of scientific 'excellence' can lead to more innovative, systemic research that may produce more appropriate technological solutions. We believe this has key implications for science policy, development policy and the practice of science for development itself.