Collective decision making on risk management and sustainable manufacturing of nanomaterials: the role of decision support tools

The paperpresents some result of a study aiming to contribute to understanding mentalmodels of decision making on management of uncertain risks and sustainablemanufacturing, and to understanding the existing tools used within this contextas a source of capabilities and potential adaptation.  Central research questions are: What criteriaare determining factors in collective decision making on risk management andsustainable manufacturing of nanomaterials? And what role can a decisionsupport tool play in distributed cognition regarding such collective decisionmaking? The paper analyses a series of semi-structured telephone interviews conductedfrom January until March 2014 with decision makers from mainly Europeanindustry and regulators involved in risk management and sustainablemanufacturing of nanomaterials. The work is part of the project on SustainableNanotechnologies (SUN) that receives funding from the European Union SeventhFramework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n° 604305.