Gotthard Bechmann is a social scientist in the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Institut für Technikfolgenabschaetzung und Systemanalyse (ITAS), Germany. His research interests center on the sociology of technology and science, environmental matters, and the sociology of law. He is teaching at the Technische Universität Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany and has been a visiting professor at the universities of Bremen (Germany), Moscow (Russia), San Sebastian (Spain) and Tampere (Finland). He has written extensively on the issue of the social construction and communication of risk. Among his publications is Risiko und Gesellschaft. Grundlagen und Ergebnisse interdisziplinärer Risikoforschung (1993). He is co-editor of the yearbook Technik und Gesellschaft.
Nico Stehr is Senior Research Associate in the Sustainable Research Development Institute of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada UBC and visiting scientist, Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie, Hamburg, Germany. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and editor of the Canadian Journal of Sociology. His research interests center on the transformation of modern society into a knowledge society, global change and public policy, the interrelation between nature and society and the uses of social and natural science knowledge. He has co-edited Society and Knowledge (1984), Knowledge and Politics (1990) with Volker Meja and The Knowledge Society (1986) with Gernot Böhme. With David Kettler and Volker Meja he is the author of Political Knowledge (1994) as well as co-editor of several previously unpublished manuscripts by Karl Mannheim. His work has been translated into numerous languages including French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Swedish, German, Chinese and Japanese. His current research interests are reflected in Practical Knowledge (1992) and Knowledge Societies: Labour, Property and Knowledge (1994) and The Culture and Power of Knowledge: Inquiries into Contemporary Societies (with Richard V. Ericson, 1992). His Klima-Wetter-Mensch (with Hans von Storch), The Fragility of Modern Societies and Knowledge and Economic Conduct: The Foundations of the Modern Economy are forthcoming.