The developments and applications of synthetic biology are still in the early stages; their future dominance and economic viability is speculation. However, the collective stories of the future of synthetic biology are neither an exaggeration nor a sideshow to scientific research and industrial application. In her lecture, Dr. Schaper-Rinkel will argue that the future development of synthetic biology will strongly depend on the active involvement of both public and private research, policy frameworks, and societal aspirations – as well as on who will design, develop, and use innovation in what ways. Stories, visions, and scenarios locate synthetic biology in the societal future and thus can advance the basis for the societal co-construction of this technology.

Dr. Petra Schaper-Rinkel is a political scientist who studies technological futures and the instruments that help shape the technologies of the future. Through EU research projects, she develops participatory processes, scenarios, and meta-narratives of the future and analyzes the practices of future-making and the political expectations regarding technologies of the future. At the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology in Vienna, she is in charge of technology assessment and foresight for the Austrian Parliament.

The evening lecture is preceded by a workshop (not open to the public) that aims to develop social challenges in synthetic biology via scenarios of the future. The results of the workshop can be discussed after the lecture.