In science policy, public controversy around synthetic biology has often been presented as a major risk because it could deter innovation. The following inter-related strategies for avoiding contestation have been observed: There have been attempts to close down debates by alluding to the importance and legitimacy of reliance on scientific evidence as input to regulatory processes. Scientific policy advice has stressed sufficiency of existing regulation, economic risks of additional regulation and/or suggestions for monitoring that are limited in (...) scope. Initiatives for self-governance have narrowed the scope of topics for consideration. Engagement with humanities, social sciences and arts has been co-opted for legitimisation and science communication. Although such agendas are of course not ubiquitous, in this paper, I criticise that instrumentally motivated engagement has been supported not only by the scientific community but also by policy institutions and funding bodies. I argue that it is good that this now seems to fuel controversy in the academic and policy realms. As synthetic biology is not the only technoscientific field to see such dynamics, this is also part of the broader context of debate about the governance of science, especially the concept of “responsible research and innovation” currently promoted in the EU. (shrink)

I'm an experimental physicist. The basic physics research I do is funded primarily by the U. S. Government. As I write this, it is less than two weeks before the 1993 Presidential Inauguration. The new Clinton Administration is still of an unknown quantity. A new Presidential Science Advisor with excellent qualifications, Dr. John H. Gibbons, has just been appointed, but little is know about the science policies of the new administration.

Many servicemen and women began suffering from a variety of symptoms and illnesses soon after the 1991 Gulf War. Some veterans believe that their illnesses are related to toxic exposures during their service, though scientific research has been largely unable to demonstrate any link. Disputes over the definition, etiology, and treatment of Gulf War-related illnesses continue. The authors examine the roles of science, policy, and veteran activism in developing an understanding of GWRIs. They argue that the government’s stress-based (...) explanation of GWRIs and its insistence on a scientific link between service in the gulf and veteran illnesses forced veterans to shift from pleas for care, treatment, and compensation on moral grounds to engagement in the scientific process and debates over the interpretation of scientific findings. The authors compare the experiences of veterans to those of breast cancer activists to explain the stages of illness contestation in general. (shrink)

Douglas proposes a new ideal in which values serve an essential function throughout scientific inquiry, but where the role values play is constrained at key points, protecting the integrity and objectivity of science.

Wicked problems are tricky to solve because of their many interconnected components and a lack of any single optimal solution. At the science–policy interface, all problems can look wicked: research exposes the complexity that is relevant to designing, executing and implementing policy fit for ambitious human needs. Expertise in philosophical research can help to navigate that complexity.

Diligent citizens must critically analyze arguments for science policy recommendations, such as cutting greenhouse gas emissions or growing genetically modified food crops. Science policy articles present arguments for and against such recommendations using scientific evidence and rhetorical devices. In this paper we present an in-depth analysis of argumentation and rhetorical devices in two journal articles on climate change issues. One objective was to gain a better understanding of use of rhetorical devices in this genre, as a (...) prerequisite for designing and building a rhetorically-annotated digital corpus of full-text science policy articles. The near term objective was to inform the design of pedagogical tools to help students analyze science policy arguments. (shrink)

Science and technology (S&T) policy studies has explored the relationship between the structure of scientific research and the attainment of desired outcomes. Due to the difficulty of measuring them directly, S&T policy scholars have traditionally equated “outcomes” with several proxies for evaluation, including economic impact, and academic output such as papers published and citations received. More recently, scholars have evaluated science policies through the lens of Public Value Mapping, which assesses scientific programs against societal values. Missing (...) from these approaches is an examination of the social activities within the scientific enterprise that affect research outputs and outcomes. We contend that activities that significantly affect research trajectories take place at the levels of individual researchers and their communities, and that S&T policy scholars must take heed of this activity in their work in order to better inform policy. Based on primary research of two scientific communities—ecologists and sustainability scientists—we demonstrate that research agendas are actively shaped by parochial epistemic and normative concerns of the scientists and their disciplines. S&T policy scholarship that explores how scientists balance these concerns, alongside more formal science policies and incentive structures, will enhance understanding of why certain science policies fail or succeed and how to more effectively link science to beneficial social outcomes. (shrink)

If philosophers of science advise government on science policy, it will have to be from a descriptive theory of scientific validity taken as hypothetically normative, as in naturalized epistemology. While logical positivism denied any normative import for the practice of science, in the area of "operational definitions" it had an unfortunate influence in psychology and sociology, and one that persists in the accountability movement. Not all philosophy of science issues have implications for the justificatory practice (...) of scientists. For example, both anti-realists and realists condone scientific quarreling about unobserved particles. Many young philosophers of science are now contributing to a sociology of scientific validity which, taken in a hypothetically normative manner, will produce recommendations on science policy. (shrink)

Government policies for science, usually incorporatingeconomic and social aims, are increasingly influencing the contentand management of university research. This essay discusses theinfluence of selected science policies on individual researchersand group leaders. Within the limitations of a case study, itargues that policies that steer the content of research have agreater influence on research behaviour, than do policies relatedto overall research management. Increasing pressures for compliancewith mission-objectives point to the need for closer discussionbetween those who make policy decisions, and (...) the wider researchcommunity. (shrink)

This paper provides a detailed account of the prehistory of the KEK National Laboratory for High Energy Physics at Tsukuba in Japan. Attempts to establish Japan's first truly national laboratory marked the beginning of ‘big science’ in Japan. An examination of the debate and decision-making processes, which spanned over a decade, provide insight into the political aspects of policy making in the post-war period. History shows that even in Japan, self-interest has taken precedence over group interests in lobbying (...) for research funds for science. (shrink)

The paper considers the notion of Science Policy from a postcolonial perspective. It examines the theoretical implications of the recent trend to include emerging and developing countries in international Science Policies by way of the case study of Switzerland. This country’s new international science policy instruments and measures have challenged the classical distinction between international scientific cooperation and development cooperation, with consequences on standards and evaluation criteria. The analysis reveals that the underlying assumptions of the (...) concept of Science Policy perpetuate traditional asymmetries in the global political economy of science. The paper suggests that the present legacy of Science Policy institutions and practices needs to be transformed to reflect an increasingly diverse spectrum of scientific purposes and traditions. It offers a revised set of foundational assumptions on Science Policy and, more broadly, proposes a fresh point of entry for the field of Science & Technology Studies to contribute to the Science Policy discourse. (shrink)

This paper is based on a study that explored the responses of bioscientists to changes in national science policy and research funding in Canada. In the late 1990s, a range of new science policies and funding initiatives were implemented, linking research funding to Canada’s competitiveness in the ‘global knowledge economy’. Bourdieu’s theory of practice is used to explore the multi-scalar, cross-field effects of global economic policy and national science policy on scientific practice. While most (...) science and educational policy studies use Bourdieu’s concepts ontologically, as “thinking tools” to theorize power, this study adopted Bourdieu’s relational epistemology, empirically linking objective positions of power with position-takings towards market-oriented science. A relational epistemology made it possible to explore what forms and weight of capital scientists brought to bear on symbolic struggles over the legitimacy of a market and scientific logic. By empirically investigating how power shaped bioscientists’ responses to market-oriented science policy, this study was able to identify key mechanisms of change within the scientific field and between science, politics and the market. First, it identified the rise of a new form of entrepreneurial capital and a market-oriented logic that coexists alongside a traditional scientific logic within the scientific field in a bipolar system of stratification. Second, it illustrated changes in scientific practice, which contribute to change in the structure of the distribution of capital within the scientific field. This study challenges Bourdieu’s emphasis on a single dominant logic or symbolic order and challenges science and technology scholars to both use and extend his theoretical contributions. (shrink)

Public controversy over animalbiotechnology is analyzed as a case that illustratestwo broad theoretical approaches for linking science,political or ethical theory, and public policy. Moralpurification proceeds by isolating the social,environmental, animal, and human health impacts ofbiotechnology from each other in terms of discretecategories of moral significance. Each of thesecategories can also be isolated from the sense inwhich biotechnology raises religious or metaphysicalissues. Moral purification yields a comprehensive andsystematic account of normative issues raised bycontroversial science. Hybridization proceeds bytaking concern (...) for all these elements to be a mark ofsound moral character. The advocate of hybridizationinfers that those who employ a strategy ofpurification seek to avoid accountability by dividingissues, and hence are not to be trusted. Lack of trustincreases perceived risk and challenges the legitimacyof government regulations to control social,environmental, and human health risks that areestablished under separate mandate, and administeredby separate agencies.The close alignment between government agencies, theiracademic affines, and the categories of purificationplaces the purified analysis in a favored politicalposition. Legitimation of science-based policy inareas like animal biotechnology becomes problematicbecause the concern of those who would take a hybridapproach (arguably the majority of lay persons) tounderstanding controversial science are excluded.Ironically, this exclusion heightens the perception ofrisk from animal biotechnology. The paper concludeswith a call for procedural approaches to incorporatingthe hybrid view of science‘s moral significance. (shrink)

Philosophy &Public Affairs, Volume 52, Issue 1, Page 5-41, Winter 2024.

This essay discusses the ways in which `Mode 1' and `Mode 2' interact, by reviewing the development of research funding in Sweden during the twentieth century. It argues that `Mode 2' has been the traditional mode of practice. `Mode 1' is a post-war phenomenon, but it is presently the dominant layer of Swedish publicly-funded science and science policy. This essay argues that we are seeing not an increase in uncertainty, but rather a decreasing tolerance of uncertainty.

In the twentieth century, philosophy (especially within the United States) embraced the notion of disciplinary expertise: philosophical research consists of working with and writing for other philosophers. Projects that involve non-philosophers earn the deprecating title of “applied” philosophy. The University of North Texas (UNT) doctoral program in philosophy exemplifies the possibility of a new model for philosophy, where graduate students are trained in academic philosophy and in how to work with scientists, engineers, and policy makers. This “field” (rather than (...) “applied”) approach emphasizes the inter- and transdisciplinary nature of the philosophical enterprise where theory and practice dialectically inform one another. UNT’s field station in philosophy at Cape Horn, Patagonia, Chile is one site for developing this ongoing experiment in the theory and practice of interdisciplinary philosophic research and education. (shrink)

Here we present the framework of a new approach to assessing the capacity of research programs to achieve social goals. Research evaluation has made great strides in addressing questions of scientific and economic impacts. It has largely avoided, however, a more important challenge: assessing (prospectively or retrospectively) the impacts of a given research endeavor on the non-scientific, non-economic goals—what we here term public values —that often are the core public rationale for the endeavor. Research programs are typically justified in terms (...) of their capacity to achieve public values, and that articulation of public values is pervasive in science policy-making. We outline the elements of a case-based approach to public value mapping of science policy, with a particular focus on developing useful criteria and methods for assessing public value failure, with an intent to provide an alternative to market failure thinking that has been so powerful in science policy-making. So long as research evaluation avoids the problem of public values, science policy decision makers will have little help from social science in making choices among competing paths to desired social outcomes. (shrink)

This article addresses the role of science and science advisory bodies in modeling practices for the support of policy-making procedures in the Netherlands in the field of health care. The authors show, based on a detailed investigation of a prestigious interdisciplinary modeling project in which an economic care model was developed for governmental use, that science advisory bodies are entangled with the policy actors they advise in what we call boundary configurations. Boundary configurations are strongly (...) situated interconnections between science advisory institutes and policy institutions that share a specific approach to problem definitions and methods and that are embedded in specific social, discursive, and material elements. Importantly, as the case study shows, such boundary configurations shape the kind of science, and related, the kind of social and political theories about the world, that is effectuated in modeling practices. In this case study, the boundary configuration in which economic experts and policy makers participated contributed to the articulation of health care in terms of a market-based policy program for the health care sector. (shrink)

Science-policy interactions can both facilitate and hamper professional normative judgement, i.e. a value judgement about the desirability of a certain situation. Anthropogenic land subsidence, contributing to relative sea-level rise in the economically important Western peatland areas in the Netherlands is a case in point. The implementation of mitigation, adaptation and compensation measures is lagging, partly due to science-policy interaction problems potentially leading to conflicts between stakeholders, including agrarians, climate scientists and inhabitants. We find that professional normative (...) judgement is enhanced when researchers and societal stakeholders reflect more critically on their role and engage in more inclusive science-policy interactions. (shrink)

This article analyzes the conditions for mobilizing the science base for development of public policy. It does so by focusing upon the science-policy interface, specifically the processes of direct interaction between scientists and scientifically trained experts, on the one hand, and agents of policymaking organizations, on the other. The article defines two dimensions – cognitive distance and expert autonomy – which are argued to influence knowledge exchange, in such a way as to shape the outcome. A (...) case study on the implementation of congestion charges in Stockholm, Sweden, illustrates how the proposed framework pinpoints three central issues for understanding these processes: Differentiating the roles of, e.g., a science-based consultancy firm and an academic environment in policy formation; Examining the fit between the organizational form of the science-policy interface and the intended goals; and Increasing our understanding of when policymaker agents themselves need to develop scientific competence in order to interact effectively with scientific experts. (shrink)

When the journal Minerva was founded in 1962, science and higher educational issues were high on the agenda, lending impetus to the interdisciplinary field of “Science Studies” qua “Science Policy Studies.” As government expenditures for promoting various branches of science increased dramatically on both sides of the East-West Cold War divide, some common issues regarding research management also emerged and with it an interest in closer academic interaction in the areas of history and policy (...) of science. Through a close reading of many early issues of Minerva but also of its later competitor journal Science Studies (now called Social Studies of Science) the paper traces the initial optimism of an academically based Science Studies dialogue across the Cold War divide and the creation in 1971 of the International Commission for Science Policy Studies as a bridging forum, one that Minerva strangely chose to ignore. In this light, attention is drawn to aspects of the often forgotten history of Science Studies in the former Soviet Union and the Eastern European block. Reviewed also are several early discussions that are still relevant today: e.g., regarding differing concepts of Big Science, science and democracy, autonomy in higher education and what conditions are necessary to sustain academic freedom and scientific integrity (some of Edward Shils’ primary concerns). Finally, it is noted how the question of quantitative methods to measure scientific productivity lay at the heart of a “Science of Science” movement of the 1960s has re-emerged in a new form integral to the notion of a “Science of Science Policy.”. (shrink)

The importance of science for guiding policy decisions has been an increasingly central feature of policy-making for much of the past century. But which science we have available to us and what counts as adequate science for policy-making shapes substantially the specific impact science has on policy decisions. Policy influences which science we pursue and how we pursue it in practice, as well as how science ultimately informs policy. (...) Values inform our choices in these areas, as values shape the research agendas scientists pursue, the issues debated as we decide on policy, and what counts as sufficient warrant in any given case. And what we value is shaped by our empirical understanding of what is, what is... (shrink)

Background Genetic research can yield information that is unrelated to the study’s objectives but may be of clinical or personal interest to study participants. There is an emerging but controversial responsibility to return some genetic research results, however there is little evidence available about the views of genomic researchers and others on the African continent. Methods We conducted a continental survey to solicit perspectives of researchers, science policy makers and research ethics committee members on the feedback of individual (...) genetic research findings in African genomics research. Results A total of 110 persons participated in the survey with 51 complete and 59 incomplete surveys received. Data was summarised using descriptive analysis. Overall, our respondents believed that individual genetic research results that are clinically actionable should be returned to study participants apparently because participants have a right to know things about their health, and it might also be a means for research participation to be recognized. Nonetheless, there is a need for development of precise guidance on how to return individual genetic research findings in African genomics research. Discussion Participants should receive information that could promote a healthier lifestyle; only clinically actionable findings should be returned, and participants should receive all important information that is directly relevant to their health. Nevertheless, detailed guidelines should inform what ought to be returned. H3Africa guidelines stipulate that it is generally considered good practice for researchers to feedback general study results, but there is no consensus about whether individual genomic study results should also be fed back. The decision on what individual results to feedback, if any, is very challenging and the specific context is important to make an appropriate determination. (shrink)

Quantitative information is one of the means used to interface science with policy. As a consequence, much effort is invested in producing quantitative information for policy and much criticism is directed toward the use of numbers in policy. In this paper, I analyze five approaches drawn from such criticisms and propose alternative uses of quantitative information for governance: valuation of ecosystem services, social multicriteria evaluation, quantification of uncertainty through the Numeral, Unit, Spread, Assessment, Pedigree approach, Quantitative (...) Story-Telling, and the heuristic use of statistics. The analysis shows the varied ways that numbers are conceptualized and how different conceptualizations matter for the science–policy interface. Alternative conceptualizations of numbers are used to challenge the model of science-speaking truth to power. Uncertainty, complexity, pluralism, malpractice, and values are mobilized to redefine the relations between science and policy. Alternative quantification may produce alternative facts, but reflexive approaches that use numbers to discuss the relevance of equity, positionality, and quality in science for policy may offer a remedy. (shrink)

Recently there have been pleas for STS to make a difference in how science policies are constructed and enacted. Much less remarked upon is the possibility that there may be troubling alignments between science studies and research policies in the form of shared conceptual, epistemological and methodological assumptions. Both have come to emphasise material outputs and visible activity, obscuring other processes, relationships and orderings involved in science work. This collection of papers focuses on these connections between STS (...) and contemporary research policies. They explore empirical material from ‘other epistemic places' to foreground and critique what is privileged and rewarded by science policies. But they also seek to make a theoretical contribution to STS itself, showing how its early focus on the hard centres of global technoscience have been constitutive of its characteristic concerns, epistemologies -and blind spots. As science studies moves out of the lab andbeyond the heartlands of the political West and global North, we argue that acknowledging some problematic affinities between science studies and science policy is both a critical necessity and an opportunity for new insights. (shrink)

The British government's White Paper on science together with government research council reports are used as a basis for critiquing current science policy and its intensifying orientation, British and worldwide, towards industrial and military development. The critique draws particulary on Plato and Bacon as yardsticks to address who science is for, what values it honours and where current policy departs from imperatives of socio-ecological justice. Metaphors of the ' Emperor 's new clothes' and incremental spectral (...) shift in attitude help illuminate both the problems and ways forward. The paper calls for a re-integration of classical perspectives with added insights, often ecofeminist, from philosophy, poetics and a theology of reverence. Predication on the values of love, interconnectedness and orientation towards childrens' all-round development should be central to curricular reform. Consistent with the views of Plato, the original founder of the Academy, the utilitarian role of science ought to be balanced with a contemplative role of science as the art of knowing ourselves in relation to nature. Only with such a holistic academic approach can it adequately rise to providing a pedagogy of authentic human development, service to the poor and remedies, rather than contribution, to the ongoing destruction of nature. (shrink)

Among other things, the philosophical tradition of pragmatism provides a theory of inquiry and a theory of collective action. The theory of inquiry frames how humans investigate their problems and devise solutions; the theory of collective action frames how we work together to implement solutions to shared problems. Though philosophical, pragmatism aims to integrate philosophy and practice by developing theory that is useful for solving the problems that press on people’s lives. In spite of this intention, and perhaps because of (...) disciplinary boundaries, practitioners in the social sciences, sciences, and professions do not always see pragmatism as being as relevant and useful as philosophers have hoped and.. (shrink)

Scholars Karl R. Popper and Thomas S. Kuhn developed new frameworks that helped shape practical science policies and contributed to a greater understanding of the power and limitations of science. Popper did not accept induction as a method of arriving at scientific conclusions and rejected the justification of scientific theories and hypotheses. On the other hand, Kuhn advocated the progress of science and accepted some principles of scientific practices, including law, theory, instrumentation and application. -/- .

Present science policy discourse is focused on a broad concept of “techno-science” and emphasizes practical economic goals and gains. At the same time scientists are worried about the freedom of research and the autonomy of science. Half a century ago the difference between basic and applied science was widely taken for granted and autonomy was a value in high esteem. Most recent accounts of the history of science policy start abruptly from World War (...) II, emphasize the Cold War context, and neglect the pioneering role of the Soviet Union in forming todays “big science.” This paper claims that a closer look into the intellectual heritage from the early twentieth century will be helpful in navigating present issues of science policy. The “Lysenko affair” was a paradigmatic case in forming Cold War views on science and politics. (shrink)

The theory of boundary organizations was developed to address an important group of institutions in American society neglected by scholarship in science studies and political science. The long-term stability of scientific and political institutions in the United States has enabled a new class of institutions to grow and thrive as mediators between the two. As originally developed, this structural feature of these new institutions—that is, their location on the boundary between science and politics—dominated theoretical frame-works for explaining (...) their behavior. Applying the theory of boundary organizations to international society requires a refocusing of some of the theory’s central features, however. In this article, I introduce a new framework—hybrid management—to explain the activities of boundary organizations in the more complex, contingent, and contested settings of global politics. I develop the framework of hybrid management using the specific example of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice. (shrink)

The Deutscher Forschungsrat (GermanResearch Council) attempted to anchor scienceadvising and science policy in West Germanyafter the Second World War. Promoted by acircle of élite scientists, the councilaimed to establish institutions and mechanismscomparable to those in Great Britain, theUnited States, and other scientific powers.After a two-and-a-half year existence, iteventually failed. The reasons for its failure,some local, some global, display thedifficulties facing research policy in theearly years of the Federal Republic.

Argumentation schemes have played a key role in our research projects on computational models of natural argument over the last decade. The catalogue of schemes in Walton, Reed and Macagno’s 2008 book, Argumentation Schemes, served as our starting point for analysis of the naturally occurring arguments in written text, i.e., text in different genres having different types of author, audience, and subject domain (genetics, international relations, environmental science policy, AI ethics), for different argument goals, and for different possible (...) future applications. We would often first attempt to analyze the arguments in our corpora in terms of those schemes, then adapt schemes as needed for the goals of the project, and in some cases implement them for use in computational models. Among computational researchers, the main interest in argumentation schemes has been for use in argument mining by applying machine learning methods to existing argument corpora. In contrast, a primary goal of our research has been to learn more about written arguments themselves in various contemporary fields. Our approach has been to manually analyze semantics, discourse structure, argumentation, and rhetoric in texts. Another goal has been to create sharable digital corpora containing the results of our studies. Our approach has been to define argument schemes for use by human corpus annotators or for use in logic programs for argument mining. The third goal is to design useful computer applications based upon our studies, such as argument diagramming systems that provide argument schemes as building blocks. This paper describes each of the various projects: the methods, the argument schemes that were identified, and how they were used. Then a synthesis of the results is given with a discussion of open issues. (shrink)

Leading scholars debate politically progressive perspectives on bioethics and the implications for society, politics, and science in the twenty-first century.