Alan Irwin

New sciences, new risks, new science governance:

the changing context for science-society relations

Alan Irwin

New challenges for the governance of science in Europe

• Science, innovation and global competition

• Science and the policy process

• Science and the ’publics’

’Britain will be sidelined in global science revolution, warns Demos…’

’We used to expect new ideas to come from the universities and research laboratories of major companies in the US and Europe. Technology flowed from this innovative core to the technologically dependent periphery. No more. The core and periphery are being scrambled up. Places that were on the margins of innovation ten years ago (.. Bangalore, Pune, Daejon, Shanghai and Shenzen..) are now essential stopping-off points in the continuous flow of people, ideas and technologies around the world.’

Demos, The Atlas of Ideas. 2007

• Lisbon strategy (2000)• Barcelona (2002)• Kok report (2004)

’Europe needs to dramatically improve its attractiveness to resarchers, as too many young scientists continue to leave Europe on graduating, notably to the US. Too few of the brightest and best from elsewhere in the world choose to live and work in Europe.’

‘In a changing world characterised by the accelerating globalisation of research and technology and the emergence of new scientific and technological powers… the European Research Area is more than ever a cornerstone for a European knowledge society.’

European Commission, The European Research Area: new perspectives. Green Paper 04.04.2007

Independent Expert Group on R&D and Innovation (2006)

‘Europe must break out of structures and expectations established in the post-WW2 era which leave it today living a moderately comfortable life on slowly declining capital. This society, averse to risk and change, is in itself alarming but it is also unsustainable in the face of rising competition from other parts of the world.’

Tony Blair at the crossroads

‘path of timidity in the face of the unknown’

A ‘nation at ease with radical knowledge, not fearful of the future, a culture that values a pragmatic, evidence-based approach to new opportunities’

‘Eating British beef is completely safe. There is no evidence of any threat to human health caused by this animal health problem (BSE)… This is the view of independent British and European scientists and not just the meat industry.. This view has been endorsed by the Department of Health.’ (The Times, May 18, 1990)

Phillips Report into BSE (2000)

‘ The Government did not lie to the public about BSE. It believed that the risks posed by BSE to humans were remote. The Government was pre-occupied with preventing an alarmist over-reaction… this campaign of reassurance was a mistake.’

Openness and transparency

• ‘Openness requires recognition of uncertainty, where it exists’

• ‘The public should be trusted to respond rationally to openness’

• ‘Scientific investigation of risk should be open and transparent’

• ‘Trust can only be generated by openness’• ‘The advice and reasoning of advisory

committees should be made public’ Lord Phillips, 2000

UK Chief Scientist’s guidelines on handling scientific advice to policymaking

• in any scientific issue, seek advice widely, deliberately including dissenting views

• do it all openly • frankly acknowledge uncertainty • try to manage potential risks in a

proportionate manner, offering choice whenever possible

Two models of expertiseOld

• Closed• Homogenous• Demanding public

trust• Expecting consensus

and prescription• Managerial control• Presenting the

evidence

New• Open• Diverse• Trusting the public• Expecting plural and

conditional advice • Distributed control• Presenting evidence,

judgement and uncertainty

House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology (2000)

‘We recommend…. that direct dialogue with the public should move from being an optional add-on to science-based policy-making…. And should become a normal and integral part of the process’

Science and Society Action Plan

‘The proposed action plan marks the beginning of a long process, the objective of which is to change the relationship between science and society.’

European Commission, 2002

Performances of engagement

• Greater transparency and openness• Public consultation exercises• Consensus conferences• ’Lay’ membership on scientific advisory

bodies• Large-scale public debate (eg GM)

Engagement as performative

GM Nation?

• Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission as social innovation

• Public debate: 3rd June – 18th July, 2003

• Focus groups, open meetings, interactive web site, closed groups -> steering board final report (September 2003)

• 37,000 feedback forms, 2.9 million website hits, 600 meetings

‘the U.K. experience was prolonged, costly, and cantankerous. It did not touch the broad mass of the public. It suffered from agenda manipulation and did not reach conclusions that were seen as clear-cut or legitimate. It informed policies, but it did not guide them.’

Walls, Rogers-Hayden, Mohr and O’Riordan, Environment. Sept 2005, p.29

New sciences, new risks, new science governance

• How do we balance knowledge and democracy in a competitive context?

• What choices can be made about scientific and technological futures?

• How do we draw upon public understandings and knowledges as a resource for change?

Scientific Citizenship: imaginations, frameworks, performances

• Scientific citizenship as contested area• Fundamental tensions between ’science’

and ’democracy’• Restricted (but significant) social

experiments so far• Problematic frameworks of meaning• Relationship to wider agenda of science,

progress and innovation

Alan Irwin

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