How does the NanoMeter work?

The Nanometer consists of 17 guiding questions or statements that scrutinize relevant societal aspects with regard to nanotechnological applications grouped under 7 categories. “Public acceptance” as one of the most critical, but rather cross-cutting issues is addressed indirectly as you will find that most aspects assessed throughout the Nanometer potentially influence customer or public acceptance concerning your application.

Each aspect includes an assessment and an information area:

The assessment area consists of a question/statement that needs to be answered in a three step process.

• First, select the most appropriate answer from a given range. You will notice that not all aspects can be applied to all NT-applications. For these cases please “not applicable” can be selected.
  
• Secondly, you are asked to indicate your “level of certainty”, i.e. how sure are you about the information given.
  
• Thirdly, each assessment is followed by a blank field for comments allowing you to specify your rough answer according to the specification of your application. For each comment box relevant content is suggested.

The information area is located within the side bar on the right. It includes two kinds of background information:

• Brief explanatory texts that can be viewed by clicking on the heading will provide you with relevant background information on each aspect addressed helping you to better understand relevance and intention of the assessment.
  
• If the assessed aspect stimulates you to consider further activities, there are references to further interesting publications or websites provided.