Designing foresight studies for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (NST) future developments

Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (NST) is widely considered as one of the most promising areas of scientific and technological development for future decades. As a consequence, almost every country in the world has chosen to invest significantly in this area. This choice, however, is only a first step in the investment decision process, given that almost any scientific discipline can be taken at the scale of a nanometre. In this paper, it is argued that foresight studies to decide where to invest in the nanotechnology area should be designed in a different way from what is normally done. Nanotechnology, in fact, has specific characteristics that should be taken into account when evaluating its expected impacts and potentialities.