The Cambridge Nanoscience Centre, home to Cambridge University's Nanoscience group, conducts research on nanowires and nanotubes, dielectrophoresis and nanometre-scale characterisation of electrical properties of conducting polymers.

Its website links to ongoing projects as well as upcoming and past seminars on topics including nanocrystals, self assembly of discrete structures and catalysis by nanogold. The website also hosts an image gallery of nanoscale pictures.

The CNS, based at Arizona State University in the United States, conducts research on the societal implications of nanotechnologies and engages policymakers and businesses in dialogue on these.

The centre publishes books, articles, presentations and reports on key topics and hosts a network of researchers developing and testing new processes of 'anticipatory governance' to understand and govern rapidly emerging areas of nanotechnology.

The CNS-UCSB serves as a network hub for researchers and educators working on the societal issues of nanotechnologies, including historical contexts, innovation processes and risk perception. It provides access to its research results, scientific papers, meeting reports, policy documents and presentations on a range of topics including water.

The centre publishes news on upcoming events and links to other US organisations working on nanotechnology.

This website publishes information on how advances in science and new technologies challenge citizenship and invites debate about issues such as the nature of expertise and processes of public participation. It provides links to working papers and other documents, including original research.

The research programme is part of the Development Research Centre on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability (Citizenship DRC), which is based at the Institute of Development Studies in the UK. Citizenship DRC is made up of a network of researchers, policymakers, practitioners and institutional partners from more than 25 countries.

D-Lab, run by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), is a programme of academic courses aimed at developing and implementing low-cost technologies to address poverty. Its approach is based on building partnerships and promoting capacity building, local innovation and indigenous knowledge.

The website contains information on its sixteen courses, and projects developed through the programme. Instructions on how to implement certain projects — such as making charcoal from agricultural waste — are also included.

The Dartmouth Flood Observatory, based in the United States, uses remote sensing data to detect, measure and map river discharge and flooding. It publishes rapid response inundation maps during a flood as well as an atlas of large floods from 1985 to present.

Data from the observatory are used by several disaster alert and relief agencies, including Sentinel Asia, Thomson Reuters AlertNet, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and Europe's Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System.

The Desert Research Institute is based in Nevada in the United States. Its principal research areas include atmosphere, water and land management – in the United States and in the developing world. The institute is engaged in a project to bring clean water and sanitation to communities in Ghana, Mali and Niger through the West Africa Water Initiative (WAWI). WAWI aims to do this before 2008.

EM-DAT, run by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters at the Universite Catholique de Louvain in Belgium, provides statistics and data on disasters' impact on humans, such as the number of people killed, injured or affected as well as economic damage estimates and disaster-specific aid contributions.

Users can search the database or pull out summary information including graphs to show temporal trends as well as reference maps of disasters by type or date.

This group, part of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School, United States, conducts research into effective policies for developing and deploying clean, efficient energy technologies. It focuses on energy-technology innovation systems and policies, and how cleaner power can alleviate poverty, based on research in three countries — China, India and the United States — who are the world's biggest energy consumers. The website publishes discussion papers and research into nuclear power, and provides information about ongoing projects, fellowships and events related to energy policy.

The Foresight Institute is a non-profit educational institute that focuses on anticipated advances in nanotechnology. It was founded by Eric Drexler, inventor of the term 'nanotechnology' and father of the vision of building materials by precisely assembling atoms.

IBSA, a joint project of the departments of science and technology in Brazil, India and South Africa, promotes research collaborations between scientists working on applications of nanotechnology. Its priority fields of research include health, water treatment and agriculture. India leads its flagship project on water purification.

IBSA publishes information on participating scientists from all three countries, ongoing projects, key global events and activities, and fellowships and job openings.

The website of the department of Nuclear Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States, provides information on current and past research in areas including nuclear reactions (fusion and fission) and security. It also hosts reports about nuclear energy's future, and publishes events, sources of information, news and undergraduate and postgraduate courses. The department aims to advance nuclear science and engineering to benefit society and the environment.

MODIS is a key instrument aboard NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites that is often used in disaster management for mapping anything from vegetation to floods or fires. It collects data in 36 spectral bands, twice a day.

The MODIS website publishes technical specifications of the instrument, provides access to data, processed products andf maps. It also hosts a large collection of MODIS images from across the world.

This group, based at the University of Greenwich in the UK, carries out research with a global scope that addresses economic, social and technical aspects of public services in a range of sectors including energy, water, waste management and healthcare. The website provides access to publications searchable by sector, country, subject and author, including reports on the economics and risks of nuclear power. Links to relevant institutions and companies are also made available, and the organisation tracks cuts in spending on public services worldwide.

This blog, run by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), highlights issues relevant to poor nations' efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change. The blog includes a weekly roundup of news appearing across several websites as well as commentaries on key topics or short opinions on the implications of new reports and research.

The blog also includes a selection of images related to agriculture and climate change in developing countries and links to key CGIAR publications.

The Synthetic Biology Project, run by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the United States, promotes informed public and policy debate on synthetic biology — the science of making or re-designing living organisms, such as bacteria, to carry out specific functions.

The project publishes news, research results and reports on policy issues, public perceptions and ethical issues surrounding synthetic biology. It also links to related publications and external resources.