Dealing smart with societal environmental concerns -

Societal concern about uncertain risks abound, particularly toward new technologies, and various governance strategies are applied. One way to deal with such concerns is to create a platform where stakeholders can exchange and broker scientific (risk)knowledge and societal concerns. An example is the Dutch Knowledge Platform Electro Magnetic Fields (KP-EMF); this approach holds potential for other risk problem areas e.g. nanotechnology, intensive animal husbandry and low-frequency noise. However, it is yet unclear how effective and efficient this approach is compared to other governance approaches; an extensive gap exists between governance practice and scientific underpinning. The variety of approaches across Europe to EMF allows us to evaluate key ingredients for smart governance and analyze requirements for its successful application. This includes evaluation of relative strength and gaps/deficiencies of different approaches and potential unintended side-effects. This project will develop/expand an (inter)national network, built around EMF and more broadly of environmental concern related to new technology. This network combines academia and practice to perform such evaluation. Examples are drawn from the broad practice of RIVM that holds the secretariat of the KP-EMF. Based on scientific evaluation of exemplary cases, the project aims to develop a generic approach that combines ingredients for smart governance and describes requirements for successful application. Partnership includes an interdisciplinary team of researchers, representatives of national health councils, municipal health services, industrial partners and NGO?s and specialists in field of governance. Internationally, university, governmental partners and relevant (EU) institutes will be approached regarding Governance approaches used.