Team:SCUT China/Integrated HP

One of the core ideas of synthetic biology is "standardization", so how to create pragmatic and versatile Human practices may be one of the problems it should be solved. With this belief, we proposed the standardized VerPraS（versatile pragmatic socialization) theory for the first time in the world. With the project itself and multiple opinions as the beginning and end, and science communication as the bridge, our team propose a strategy aims to provide all synthetic biology projects with a strategy that recognizes the nature of the project and conducts reasonable socialization and marketization. We believe that this strategy can contribute to the further development of synthetic biology into public's lives.

Cognize project -- analysis of applifund-duality

In synthetic biology technology and even all frontier science and technology, there are values as applied and academic values. We distributed 170 questionnaires to investigate and analyze this question, and found that the current discussion on applifund-duality is quite insufficient. The essence of the project is understood through the analysis of applifund-duality, and then the relationship between the project results and social production and life is understood. For projects with a higher fundamental preference, the resources invested in Human practice should be appropriately controlled. The Human practices process should be characterized by a smaller scale of "academic and professional", seeking advice and constructive Suggestions from professionals in the field for the academic progress of the project. For projects with a higher application preference, their Human practice process should be characterized by a larger scale of "diversification and industrialization", seeking for multiple opinions related to the product, understanding the social significance of the projects. In the process of confirming the applifund-duality, we developed a questionnaire to assist the project team to have a deep understanding of itself.

Click here and read the result of applifund-duality survey

Define path -- product positioning and social issues

After defining the attributes of the project itself, it is necessary to make clear the positioning of the project as a product and the social problems which is expected to solve. This is where the team needs to evaluate the product. On the one hand, the team should reason about the areas where the product can be used to maximize the value of the product -- that is, whether the society needs the product or not. On the other hand, once the product has its own positioning, it should be clear what kind of social problem the product is intended to solve -- that is, how much society needs the product. For this link, maybe many questions can not be answered immediately. Therefore, these questions should be taken as the target of social investigation and the answers should be sought in the follow-up investigation. The two core questions to be solved in this link are "whether the society needs this product" and "how much the society needs this product". We designed a set of questionnaires for reference.

click here and read the VerPras Theory.(Chapter 3. 2, Page 15)

Collect multi-opinions -- classification of survey objects in four dimensions

The purpose of any Human practices survey is to obtain suggestions from the groups related to the project. And for most practical production of synthetic biology projects, the outcome of the projects would usually affect the various groups in the society, but different groups has different correlation with the project. Understand the project speed also have differences. With the same kind of investigation method to investigate is difficult to reflect the real situation of each group, and may create some negative impact on the development of project because of differences in understanding. In this theoretical system, the team took "relevance to the project" and "speed of understanding the project" as variables to divide all the respondents, and formulated the survey objectives -- "Suggestions", "requirements", "feedback" and "understanding" -- for each type of respondents.

click here and read the VerPras Theory.(Chapter 3. 3, Page 17)

Enhance awareness – combine science with art and culture

The public's understanding and recognition of science and technology will greatly affect the process of socialization and marketization of science and technology. Nowadays, how to carry out science communication and popularization efficiently is one of the hot topics in academic circles. "Use culture and art to propagate science" means to link the scientific principles of products with cultural symbols or stories which are connected with them in ideology, and to convey the scientific principles to the public through relatively simple interpretation of cultural symbols or stories, so as to explain the advantages and significance of technology .This approach can effectively prevent public from spending too much time on understanding obscure technical terms and principles, and shift their attention to more critical technical advantages and meanings. In this regard, the team, guided by the concept of " Use culture and art to propagate science", established Sarasvati (Guangzhou) design co., ltd. to practice this concept.

click here and read the VerPras Theory.(Chapter 3. 4, Page 19)

Direct tomorrow-- survey results collation and analysis

After the completion of the social survey, the results of the social survey should be sorted out in order to point out the direction for the socialization and marketization of subsequent products. This process should review each link of the whole investigation, take into account the conclusions drawn from each link, and finally make relevant plans. After the completion of all social practice links, it is necessary to flexibly formulate socialization and marketization strategys based on the actual situation and with clear objectives, so as to achieve effective socialization and marketization of synthetic biology products.

click here and read the VerPras Theory.(Chapter 3. 5, Page 20)

Postscript, Discussion and our Future Plan
As one of the most important technologies in the future, it is meaningful that synthetic biology can reasonably and effectively play its productive forces and market value. But without proper socialization, the treasure of synthetic biology will be forever tarnished, and public will always regard biological technology as a mystery without any useful subject. The background of “VerPras Theory” lies in the Human practices process of actual synthetic biology projects, but its development lies in the practical use of this theory by more and more diverse synthetic biology projects. The research team had a meeting with Mr. Li Xingbo of South China university of Technology. From a more in-depth perspective of sociology, he proposed Suggestions for us, which including optimizing sampling methods, thinking about the social environment of practical application of theories, and looking for key groups in the socialization process of synthetic biology projects. We will continue to work hard to further socialize and marketize the synthetic biology strategy so that it can reach more public and serve more great technologies and products.