A
comment from Professor Peter Dobson, academic director Begbroke Science Park, University of Oxford:
"The starting point for this should be to clearly define what we mean by “technology” and it is the appliance of science to change commerce, industry or society. Therefore of your lists, I would argue that synthetic biology is still in the realms of science and is some way from being truly capable of making stuff or changing society. However it could be “emerging”! I think that some “timeline” is needed and hence the reference to the fact that robotics is still emerging…yes it is, but it is a lot more “emerged” than most of the others on the list! Similarly some of these such as Information Technology will expand and further evolve. In the light of this, I believe that we should put “time” into the discussion. I think that others such as food irradiation is really only a “subset” of food technology; swarm robotics is also a subset of the larger “robotics” field. I am curious to know why some topics such as “image analysis”, regenerative medicine, personalized healthcare have not been mentioned. Many of these are examples of “converged themes) and personally I would not put “convergent technology” on your list, but rather try to identify what is “converging”."