Sociotechnical alignment in biomedicine: The 3D bioprinting market beyond technology convergence
Section snippets
Blending technologies
It is widely realized that the name “mobile phone” (or “cell phone”) is far from doing justice to what the device really is. It can be used as a calculator, an internet browser, a digital diary, a data storage device, among other applications which include, for sure, that of a telephone. This kind of combination of different technologies, which creates not only sophisticated machines but also thriving markets, has frequently been described with the concept of technology convergence. To be sure,
Research methods
This paper derives from the research project called Governing Biomodification in the Life Sciences (BioGov), conducted through a collaboration between researchers based in the Universities of Sussex, Oxford, and York. The project is aimed to identify and interpret the social and regulatory challenges posed by three cutting-edge biomedical technologies: 3D bioprinting, gene editing, and induced pluripotent stem cells. Ethics approval was obtained from the Central University Research Ethics
Market features
Analysts mobilizing the concept of technology convergence tend to emphasize the benefits of the phenomenon, the biggest of which is technology development, said to be quicker and more robust in converging technologies [36,37]. Furthermore, consumers are said to benefit from convergence insofar as new and improved products reach the market thanks to such convergence [2].
Due to these advantages and positive externalities, “[…] R&D managers and researchers have formulated their own strategies for
Sociotechnical alignment and its dimensions
To analyse how sociotechnical alignment manifests itself in the emerging global bioprinting market, technical and scientific aspects will be stressed. Such effort will conduct us towards the analysis of underlying socio-political processes.
Final considerations
Generally, authors speaking of technology convergence focus on the connections made possible when technologies come together. Alternatively, in the approach advanced here, it has been pointed out since the beginning that alignments are as important as misalignments that remain to be tackled in the future. In the usage proposed by Dilger and Mattes [50], it can be said that “flows” are as important as “particular disconnections, immobilities, and blockages of flows.”
One finding that needs to be
Funding
This work is supported by the Leverhulme Trust under the grant number 68387.
Declarations of competing interest
None.
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