Understanding societal challenges: a NeurotechEU perspective

Daniela Schulz; Carmen Lillo-Navarro; Marc Slors; Anett Hrabéczy; Martin Reuter

doi:10.3389/fnins.2024.1330470

Understanding societal challenges: a Neurotech^EU perspective

Front Neurosci. 2024 Jul 26:18:1330470. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2024.1330470. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Daniela Schulz¹, Carmen Lillo-Navarro², Marc Slors³, Anett Hrabéczy⁴, Martin Reuter⁵

Affiliations

¹ Behavioral Biology Laboratory, Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Center for Life Sciences and Technologies, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Türkiye.
² Department of Pathology and Surgery, Center for Translational Research in Physiotherapy, Miguel Hernández University, Alicante, Spain.
³ Philosophy of Mind and Cognition, Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands.
⁴ Department of Educational Studies, Institute of Educational Studies and Cultural Management, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary.
⁵ Personality Psychology and Biological Psychology, Laboratory of Neurogenetics, Department of Psychology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.

Abstract

Futuristic universities like The Neurotech^EU and the technological innovations they provide will shape and serve society, but will also require support from society. Positive attitudes about neuro-technologies will increase their reach within society and may also impact policy-making, including funding decisions. However, the acceptability rates, especially of invasive neuro-technologies, are quite low and the majority of people are more worried than enthusiastic about them. The question therefore arises as to what neuro-technological advances should entail. In a rare effort to reach out to the public, we propose to conduct a trans-national survey with the goal to better understand the challenges of our Neurotech^EU nations. We aim to compare and contrast our nations specifically with respect to their perspectives on neuro-technological advances, i.e., their needs for, interests in, access to, knowledge of and trust in neuro-technologies, and whether these should be regulated. To this end, we have developed the first version of a new tool-the Understanding Societal Challenges Questionnaire (USCQ)-which assesses all six of these dimensions (needs, interest, access, knowledge, trust, and policy-making) and is designed for administration across EU/AC countries. In addition to trans-national comparisons, we will also examine the links of our nations' perspectives on neuro-technological advances to demographic and personality variables, for example, education and socio-economic status, size of the residential area, the Big Five personality traits, religiosity, political standings, and more. We expect that this research will provide a deeper understanding of the challenges that our nations are facing as well as the similarities and differences between them, and will also help uncover the variables that predict positive and negative attitudes toward neuro-technological advances. By integrating this knowledge into the scientific process, The Neurotech^EU may be able to develop neuro-technologies that people really care about, are ethical and regulated, and actually understood by the user.

Keywords: European University; ethics; neuro-technologies; personality traits; policy-making; public opinion; societal innovation; survey.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by Neurotech^EU grant EPP-EUR-UNIV-2020-101004080 and iNavigate grant H2020-MSCA-RISE-2019-873178 (DS).