Nanotechnology has been the subject of a large number of public engagement exercises over the past decade, but all this activity has had little impact on government policy formulation1,2 because governments tend to favour their own forms of engagement. As Cohen has argued in a different context, the outcomes from such activities reflect the particular institutional constraints under which they are made3. Moreover, efforts to bring different stakeholders together to share different perspectives have tended to lead to competition rather than cooperation as these groups have competed with each other in their attempts to represent the best interests of the public, albeit generally from their own points of view