New technologies, such as those developed through funding from Horizon 2020, can only be successful if they are fit for market and society.  The dramatic scale and pace of technological developments offers tremendous potential, but with these opportunities come new dangers and new responsibilities. This implies that technological innovations need to pay close attention to the social contexts in which they are to be placed.  Moreover, many social innovations require technological development to be successful.  Thus, social and technical research need to go hand in hand.

The advisory group to FET – the Future & Emerging Technologies Programme devoted to ground-breaking technologies – propose that much more attention should be paid by Horizon 2020 and its successor to supporting multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research that brings together engineering, natural science and the social sciences and humanities in a way in which no one discipline is pre-eminent, but all work together, each inspiring and depending on the others.

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