Advances in biological engineering are likely to have substantial impacts on global society. To explore these potential impacts we ran a horizon scanning exercise to capture a range of perspectives ...on the opportunities and risks presented by biological engineering. We first identified 70 potential issues, and then used an iterative process to prioritise 20 issues that we considered to be emerging, to have potential global impact, and to be relatively unknown outside the field of biological engineering. The issues identified may be of interest to researchers, businesses and policy makers in sectors such as health, energy, agriculture and the environment.
Beyond the great and good Doubleday, Robert; Wilsdon, James
Nature,
05/2012, Volume:
485, Issue:
7398
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
...a 2012 report by the UK House of Lords Science and Technology Committee highlighted "standing and authority within the scientific community" as the foremost essential characteristic of a CSA3. ......they should be externally appointed senior figures, drawn from academia or industry, who can access a wide range of expertise by dint of their position and reputation. ...there needs to be greater recognition of the contribution that different disciplines and perspectives make to an effective advisory system - including the social sciences, arts and humanities, but also civil society and the public.
•Policy windows periodically open enabling easier knowledge uptake.•Environmental research has tended to regard policy windows as serendipitous.•We argue that environmentalists can create, identify ...and seize on policy windows.•We propose a 4-stage framework for practically approaching policy windows.
Scientific knowledge is considered to be an important factor (alongside others) in environmental policy-making. However, the opportunity for environmentalists to influence policy can often occur within short, discrete time windows. Therefore, a piece of research may have a negligible or transformative policy influence depending on when it is presented. These ‘policy windows’ are sometimes predictable, such as those dealing with conventions or legislation with a defined renewal period, but are often hard to anticipate. We describe four ways that environmentalists can respond to policy windows and increase the likelihood of knowledge uptake: 1) foresee (and create) emergent windows, 2) respond quickly to opening windows, 3) frame research in line with appropriate windows, and 4) persevere in closed windows. These categories are closely linked; efforts to enhance the incorporation of scientific knowledge into policy need to harness mechanisms within each. We illustrate the main points with reference to nature conservation, but the principles apply widely.
Abstract
Conventional accounts of expert authority frequently over-simplify relations between science and politics, and presume the existence of a singular ‘interface’ between these domains. In ...contrast, this article draws on semi-structured interviews to document how the authority of UK Chief Scientific Advisers emerges from their engagement in the construction and bridging of several distinct but interrelated boundaries. Building on co-productionist accounts of science–policy interactions, the paper moreover contends that these various boundaries are themselves constituted within place-specific contexts. The locally-situated, material conditions of advice-giving, in short, fundamentally shape the hybridisation and mutual alignment of science and politics around specific governance objectives. Further analytical work on expert advisory processes and expert authority should, we contend, be more closely attuned to the roles played by discursive, social, and material factors in facilitating boundary bridging and co-production in practice.
Nanotechnology exemplifies the intensification of policy concerns both with relations between science and innovation, and with the public authority of scientific knowledge. This paper focuses on the ...negotiation of accountability by a nanoscience laboratory both to the state for public funds and to wider society for the social aspects of nanotechnology. This paper argues that geographical approaches can address questions of accountability by paying attention to the laboratory as a site for the co-production of scientific, technological and social orders. In particular, this paper focuses on how concepts of innovation and citizenship are configured through particular moments of laboratory accounting.
Science advice has received renewed attention for evidence-informed legislation. However, no work has evaluated current trends in the field. We did a systematic review for publications between 2014 ...and 2020 to develop a typology using the legislative scientific advice body as a unit of analysis. The typology includes 12 categories that provide insights into the contextual background, mandate, structure, and advice process of legislative advisory bodies. We noticed that most of the work focused on advisory units is in western and high-income countries. The bodies show a wide degree of advice practices and politicisation. There are open opportunities for research, such as doing further comparative analyzes. Lastly, we found that foresight and horizon scanning methodologies were increasingly implemented in legislatures for participatory advice and to set long-term priorities. The findings can shed light on advancing legislative scientific advice for researchers and practitioners alike.
Nanotechnology research receives large sums of public funds because of the technological innovations it promises, not least in the area of medical technologies. Exploration of social aspects of ...nanotechnology is now encouraged by science policy in attempts to foreclose possible future public controversy. This article explores how the social aspects of nanotechnology have emerged as a public issue; how public engagement projects are framed in terms of nanotechnology; and the rationale for social science research on nanotechnology. The article argues that pubic policy processes are increasingly focusing narrowly on the environmental and health risks of nanoparticles and that public engagement projects are limited by adopting nanotechnology as a focus of deliberation. The article concludes by rejecting grand claims for social science as a means of making science and technology more reflexive, but suggests more modest ways that research can support a widening of discussion of the public dimensions of nanotechnology.
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