Science for Policy

Eric Guilyardi on scientists engaging in public advocacy

Should scientists get involved in public campaigning, lobbying or advocating for causes close to their heart — or close to their research? If so, what are the responsibilities of scientists and their employing institutions — and what are the potential pitfalls?

In this episode, Toby Wardman takes a deep dive into these questions with Professor Eric Guilyardi, a member of the ethics committee of the French national centre for scientific research, and the co-author of its opinion on public advocacy by scientists.

Alessandro Allegra on the role of secretariats in science advice

We often shine the spotlight on the advisors whose high-profile work comes at the end of the science advice process, and on the academics whose research it's based on. But there is a third important actor in this process, often working informally, sometimes moving in the shadows – the faceless bureaucrat or administrator. Alessandro Allegra dedicated his PhD studies to analysing the role of science advice secretariats, what they do, and how formal that role should be. And he spills the beans to Toby Wardman in this episode.

Andrea Heilrath and Clara Roca-Sastre on arts in science advice

People are forever saying that science advice should not just be about the natural sciences, but also about the social sciences, humanities and arts. And yet lumping those three categories together conceals a host of interesting complications. The contribution of the social sciences and humanities to policymaking is relatively easy to conceptualise, even if sometimes challenging in execution.

But the arts? How can artists contribute to research, add to scientific evidence, or have an impact on scientific advice to policy? Or is the role of art limited to public engagement?

In this episode, two working physicists who are also artists, Clara Roca-Sastre and Andrea Heilrath, explore this topic in dialogue with Toby Wardman, our own science communicator who is also an artist. Enjoy!

Karen Yeung on evidence use in AI policymaking

Karen Yeung is an interdisciplinary professor at the University of Birmingham, specialising in AI. In this episode, she discusses with Toby Wardman the uses of AI in evidence-based policymaking, and the uses of evidence in AI policymaking.

Mikel Landabaso on science and innovation for development policy

Mikel Landabaso, Director for Fair and Sustainable Economy in the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, knows a fair few things about the role of science and technology innovation in informing regional development policy and promoting regeneration. In this episode, he talks to Toby Wardman about how it works, how his advice has been taken, and the strategies to adopt when policymakers or stakeholders aren't able to appreciate it on its own terms.

Maggie Dugan on bringing people together

How do you bring scientists and policymakers together to generate creative solutions to thorny problems? How can you engineer a conversation on controversial issues that builds trust between allies rather than alienating opponents? And what's the secret to overcoming cynicism about either the process or the outcome?

 

With a background in history, business and journalism, Maggie Dugan has wisdom to share on all these questions and more!

Linda Lammensalo on writing a handbook for Finnish researchers

The Finnish Academy of Science and Letters has been active in the science-for-policy space in Finland for decades, including in recent years playing a leading role in setting up an important science advice mechanism for the Finnish government. Now it has also published a comprehensive handbook for researchers, with advice and practical exercises to help guide them in their first steps in policy engagement.

In this episode, Linda Lammensalo talks to Toby Wardman about what's in the handbook and why.

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Finnish academy handbook: https://acadsci.fi/en/publications/a-new-handbook-provides-tools-for-researchers-in-the-science-policy-interface/
• Science Europe guidance: https://www.scienceeurope.org/our-resources/guidance-science-for-policy/ 

ChatGPT on science advice

What does our most advanced AI, trained on the sum total of all human knowledge, have to say about the challenges of the science-policy interface? And can it tell a good joke? (Hint: The answer to that one is no.)

Episode 100: Live from Helsinki

Welcome to our 100th episode! This one comes to you complete with a live audience at the University of Helsinki, kindly hosted by the SRI Congress 2024.

Debating questions

Warm-up debates:

(1) We should get rid of daylight saving time.

(2) How would a dog wear trousers? Hind legs only, or all four legs on the bottom half of its body?

(3) In which order do you put on socks and shoes? Sock sock shoe shoe, or sock shoe sock shoe?

 

Substantive debates:

(1) Science advice organisations should welcome researchers who have connections to industry or campaign groups.

(2) As a science advisor, I'm OK with my research being used by everyone in the policymaking process.

(3) As a science advisor, it's OK to have private conversations with a policymaker.

(4) As a science advisor, I should present only the evidence. Interpreting that evidence is the policymaker's job.

(5) It's my duty as a scientist to lobby for changes in society, based on the evidence as I see it.

(6) If a policymaker wants a simple answer from science, I should give them one.

(7) When there isn't enough data for a robust evidence-based answer, I should give my best guess.

(8) When scientists disagree on a controversial issue, I should present my own view on what the evidence says.

(9) If the politicians make a decision which really goes against my advice, it's my duty to speak out publicly against it.

(10) As a science advisor, I should try to present different stakeholder positions, such as those of affected communities.

 

Resources mentioned in this episode

• SRI Congress 2024: https://sricongress.org/home/about-sri2024/
• The noble vibraslap, queen of percussion instruments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibraslap
• Spotify playlist featuring the vibraslap: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3pXPF32AkTNcRfNswxnaWq?si=bdb62b8d74dd4151 

Claudia Chwalisz on science and expertise in innovative forms of government

There are many different ways to make policies, and many different ways for science and evidence to impact on those policies. In western liberal democracies, we tend to focus on our specific, forgetting that across the world and across history our specific way of doing things is not the only way.

 

Claudia Chwalisz, from the think-tank DemocracyNext, has spent a lot of time thinking about alternative ways to govern our societies, especially when it comes to dealing with challenges that are scientifically or morally complex. In this episode, she talks to Toby Wardman about how alternative decision-making processes could work, and whether they would strengthen or change the roles of science, evidence and expertise in deliberation.

 

Resources mentioned in this episode

• DemocracyNext: https://www.demnext.org/ 

Nicola Dotti on guidelines for science advice organisations

In recent months, there's been a small explosion of guidelines and handbooks on how to do science advice. In today's episode, Toby Wardman takes a deep dive into Science Europe's recent guidance for research-funding and research-performing organisations, in conversation with their author, Nicola Dotti.

Andrea Emilio Rizzoli and Manuel Kugler on AI in science and science advice

This is probably the last podcast in the world to get round to talking about how AI is changing the world -- but we wanted to wait until we had the right people in the room to talk specifically about AI in relation to science, policy, and science-for-policy. If you like this conversation with Professor Andrea Rizzoli and Manuel Kugler -- and you will like it! -- stay tuned in the coming months, because we've got more AI-themed episodes up our sleeves.

Caitlin Chin-Rothmann on misinformation, science and the media ecosystem

It's sometimes easy to forget that even the most well-designed science advice institution, and even the most persuasive advisor, are still operating as part of a broad ecosystem in which both policymakers and the general public are exposed to vast quantities of ostensibly factual information of varying quality, much of it mediated through algorithms. In this episode, Caitlin Chin-Rothmann from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC talks us through this broader context and how science advisors can adapt to it.

Vanesa Weyrauch and Leandro Echt on why context matters

Why does evidence sometimes land and sometimes not? Why do some policies fail even though the evidence suggests they should succeed?  And what can we do about it? Saying "it's all about the context" is easy, but what does this actually mean? And more importantly, how can we make that into a useful insight in advance, rather than just a post-hoc justification for things not working out?

Vanesa Weyrauch and Leandro Echt have looked into this question in some detail, and their organisation, Purpose & Ideas, created a framework to tackle exactly these questions. In this episode, they discuss with Toby Wardman of the SAM not just why context matters, but what that actually means and what we can do about it.

 

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Context Matters framework: https://www.purposeandideas.org/post/context-matters-but-are-we-prepared-to-build-on-this 

Michael Bang Petersen on integrating psychology into policymaking

Politicians don't really have a great understanding of the citizens they serve, according to Michael Bang Petersen. In place of evidence from decades of psychological research, they tend to substitute their own instincts and common sense, together with more or less apposite fragments of behavioural science and economics. Nowhere was this more evident than during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, when opportunities to build trust and communicate science were squandered. Tune in and settle down for an intriguing tour of how things ought to be done.

Dilek Fraisl on citizen science for policymaking

When countries set themselves ambitious targets such as the UN sustainable development goals, then realise they don't have the evidence sources they need to monitor progress towards those targets, how do they square the circle? In some cases, it's with so-called 'citizen science', in which non-professional scientists gather and evaluate data — often on a big scale — to fill the gaps.

 

Dr Dilek Fraisl is an expert in using citizen science to address sustainability challenges. In conversation with Toby Wardman, she discusses both the value of using crowdsourced data, and the challenges that arise when presenting it to policymakers.

Lena Höglund-Isaksson, Behnam Zakeri and Zuelclady Araujo on modelling

How do scientific models inform policymakers? How can they keep countries honest in international climate negotiations? When is uncertainty not so much of a problem? And how much does it matter if policymakers don't instantly grasp the ins and outs of a model which takes six months for scientists to learn? Join the SAM's Toby Wardman on a deep dive into what happens when scientific models meet international politics.

Daniel Ospina and Judit Ungvári on science advice for climate negotiators

Climate change negotiators preparing for UN summits must sift through a truly intimidating quantity of scientific material to familiarise themselves with the latest evidence. That's why Future Earth, along with the Earth League and the World Climate Research Programme, has delivered its pithy 'Ten New Insights on Climate Change' every year since 2017.

But what is the process behind these reports? How are the insights chosen, by whom, and why? And what is it about this model of science advice that also made it attractive to the European Commission when it wanted to figure out which climate and biodiversity research to fund in the future? Daniel Ospina and Judit Ungvári talk to Toby Wardman of the SAM about the ins and outs of science advice at the highest level of global decision-making.

 

Resources mentioned in this episode

10 new climate insights: https://10insightsclimate.science/ 

Patricia Gruber on science advice in the US state department

Dr Patricia Gruber is the science and technology advisor to Antony Blinken, President Biden's secretary of state. In a wide-ranging conversation with Toby Wardman from the SAM, she discusses how she got her job, what it's like, and what she can and can't do. She also lays out the US's approach to international science diplomacy, including the wisdom (or folly) or withholding scientific collaboration as a diplomatic measure.

Marie Gaarder and Thomas Kelly on evidence for development policy

International development is a major political priority in many countries, with billion-dollar budgets. But, as recently as 2006, the influential Center for Global Development published a damning report entitled 'When will we ever learn?', essentially arguing that the entire policy area had been built on a foundation of guesswork and good intentions.

 

In the two decades since then, a huge amount of work has been done to bring rigorous evidence to this complex and often values-laden political area. For the Science for Policy podcast, Marie Gaarder and Thomas Kelly from the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation cover all the bases: the evidence we have and the evidence we need, how it should be used, and what's still getting in the way.

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Report 'When will we ever learn?': https://www.cgdev.org/publication/when-will-we-ever-learn-improving-lives-through-impact-evaluation 

Maja Fjaestad on the role of science in Sweden's Covid response

Dr Maja Fjaestad, an academic with an engineering background, had grand plans when she was appointed Swedish state secretary for health. Unfortunately, this was in 2019, and less than a year later her job was completely transformed by the Covid outbreak.

 

In this wide-ranging interview with Toby Wardman, Dr Fjaestad talks about what it was like being in the job during Covid, how well the science-policy interface was functioning in Sweden at the time, and the links between Swedish Covid response, scientific evidence and public communication.

Panel discussion on science advice in a crisis

In this special episode of the podcast recorded at a live event in 2023, four experts discuss the role of science advice in emergency situations: what challenges do science advisors face, and what opportunities should they seize?

With Tina Comes, professor at Technical University Delft; Barbara Prainsack, professor at the University of Vienna and chair of the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies; Maarja Kruusmaa, professor at Tallinn University and member of the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors to the European Commission; and Daniela di Bucci, geologist and advisor to the Italian government.

Bart van den Hurk and Jana Sillmann on storytelling

In a scientific field as complex and multifaceted as climate modelling, how do you communicate the realities of concrete impacts to stakeholders and policymakers? Two IPCC scientists, Bart van den Hurk and Jana Sillmann, are working on so-called 'storylines' techniques, which generate high-resolution, interdisciplinary stories to help decision-makers in all fields assess their own readiness for climate-related changes.

Resources mentioned in this episode

https://climatestorylines.eu/ 

Moniek Tromp on youth and diversity in science advice

How diverse are the people who work on scientific advice -- and why does this matter? Should we be involving more young people as experts, and are there any trade-offs in doing so? What impact might changes in academic culture more broadly have on the quality and availability of evidence for policy?

Professor Moniek Tromp, a founding member of the Young Academies Science Advice Structure and a member of the COARA coalition on improving research assessment, reflects on what's working well and why the rest is still so difficult.

Tome Sandevski and Michèle Knodt on informal science-policy fellowships

Beyond the world of institutional design and formalised competences that tend to be the focus of science-for-policy scholarship, there are many less structured interfaces between the worlds of research and policymaking.

One such well-established interface is the Mercator science-policy fellowship, run by three German universities and headed by Tome Sandevski. In this episode, Toby Wardman of the SAM talks to Tome and his colleague Michèle Knodt, who is currently taking part in the scheme.