Science for Policy

Drawing on their broad portfolio of exciting, sci-fi-sounding research areas, Tim Marler and Sana Zakaria from RAND Corporation talk in depth about how the latest scientific evidence on AI and gene-editing can best be communicated to policymakers nationally and globally. What are the hot topics? What decisions do policymakers face right now? Where can different kinds of scientific evidence help to inform those decisions, and where are policymakers on their own?

Resources mentioned in this episode

• RAND Corporation report on machine learning and gene editing: https://www.rand.org/randeurope/research/projects/ai-at-the-helm-of-a-species-evolution.html 

The Philippines is remarkably exposed to natural disasters, from earthquakes to typhoons to volcanic eruptions.

Dr Glenn Fernandez, a disaster risk management expert, started his science advice career as a masters student and has continued ever since, helping cities and rural municipalities to prepare for and respond to emergencies. In this episode, he shares his experiences and insights with Toby Wardman from the SAM.

Veera Mitzner is the organiser of the Sustainability Research and Innovation Congress, a major annual event which brings together thousands of researchers, stakeholders and, yes, policymakers. But how do events like this fit into the broader evidence-for-policy landscape?

Greece does not have a long tradition of institutionalised science advisory mechanisms, but after dealing relatively well with Covid, the situation is starting to change. Professor Stella Ladi, an expert on evidence-informed policymaking at home and internationally, talks to Toby Wardman about the past, present and future of science advice in Greece.

 

Professor Ladi has been promoted since this conversation was recorded! Hence she is referred to as 'Dr Ladi' at the start of the episode.

The EU climate law created a new institution, the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change, which started work just this year and targets the European Commission, Parliament and Council. Its chair, Professor Ottmar Edenhofer, took time out of his busy schedule to share with us what it's like setting up a new science advice body and how happy he is with their first significant report.

Resources mentioned in this episode

• https://climate-advisory-board.europa.eu/ 

Elections are not the only way to power democratic decision-making. A system of government by random selection of citizens, or 'sortition', has been around since at least ancient Athens and, as Hugh Pope explains, has never quite disappeared.

But if we adopt such a radically different way of making policy, what are the implications of science for policy? Do experts take on different roles, and how can citizen-politicians acquire the skills they need to make judgement calls on scientifically complex issues?

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Maurice Pope, 'The Keys to Democracy: Sortition as a new model for citizen power'. http://books.imprint.co.uk/book/?gcoi=71157100410200 

What do science advisors have to offer in conflict situations? Can evidence and expertise ever cut through political polarisation and contribute to finding new forms of compromise? What kinds of advisors do we need, and what kinds of advice? Should they be strictly neutral, or is plurality and openness more useful? Do politicians really want scientific evidence, and what if it puts pressure on their longstanding political positions?

 

Our guest today, Marc Sanjaume i Calvet, is an expert on the Catalan-Spanish independence debate as well as democracy, federalism and secession more generally. The president of Catalonia appointed him as the coordinator of an expert group working towards a so-called 'clarity agreement' for the Catalan region.

Welcome to the Arctic, where science-for-policy and policy-for-science collide in increasingly complicated ways. You can't make climate-change policy anywhere in the world without scientific evidence we get from the Arctic — but at the same time, being able to get that evidence depends on a delicate balance of policies and geopolitical interests that have made collaborative research between Europe, North America and Russia possible since before the Cold War.

But then you might have heard that Russia has invaded Ukraine, and suddenly the whole institution is under threat. Norwegian experts Ole Øvretveit and Eystein Jansen explain what's going on, and what we might be able to do about it.

Most of Europe's colossal Horizon research funding programme is laser-focused on strategic objectives set by policymakers. But one Horizon-funded institution, the European Research Council, breaks the mould: its grants are awarded on the basis of excellence alone, and as Dr Eleni Zika explains, they are proud to deliberately ignore questions such as the usefulness of science to policy or society.

 

Why, then, has the ERC recently set up its own 'feedback to policy' unit, which would seem to go against its stated mission? Toby Wardman of SAPEA investigates.

Politicians are humans, and humans do not always reason syllogistically from premises to conclusions. The problem is amplified when political decisions have to be made fast, under conditions of uncertainty, with either not enough information or far too much.

That's where heuristics come in -- and Professor Barbara Vis is here to help us understand when they are used, what their impacts can be, and how we should take that into account when delivering science advice.

When Slovenia rolled out its national diabetes plan, they had the evidence, they had the funding, they had the centres, they had the doctors and nurses... but people didn't show up.

 

Simply having the right information is not enough to build an effective policy. You can't just factor out the complexities — you need to factor them in.

 

Heather Rogers and Jelka Zaletel tell us more about the intriguing topic of implementation science.

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How might the future of science advice look at the global level? Will the establishment of a UN Group of Friends on Science for Action be the catalyst that elevates science advice to the highest levels of multilateral decision-making, and how will this complement the Secretary-General's renewed scientific advisory board? And what should the role of the international science community be?

In this episode, Dr Salvatore Aricò, chief executive of the International Science Council, shares his experience and his vision with Toby Wardman, drawing on practical examples to illustrate how such science advice mechanisms work in practice. We also discuss the challenges and opportunities for scientists and the ISC that can help translate science into action, policy-relevant advice.

Resources mentioned in this episode

• International Science Council: https://council.science/
• Join our listener community, meet other listeners and discuss science-for-policy topics! https://join.slack.com/t/scienceforpol-iju8175/shared_invite/zt-1q94fmb6r-oG3q8QKf8cxXnKMNCkR77A

The Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy is the cherry on top of an intricate and diverse ecosystem that provides for the science and evidence needs of policymakers in the Netherlands. It has a unique mandate: to look beyond the daily cut and thrust of politics, to challenge both government and parliament to think about important strategic issues that stretch into the future. Oh, and it reports directly to the prime minister.

 

Too good to be true? You might well think so. But here's its secretary, Frans Brom, to explain why you're wrong.

 

Listener community

Join our listener community, meet other listeners and discuss science-for-policy topics! https://join.slack.com/t/scienceforpol-iju8175/shared_invite/zt-1q94fmb6r-oG3q8QKf8cxXnKMNCkR77A 

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy

In this episode, Bárbara Willaarts and Thomas Schinko from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis explain why transdisciplinarity means more than just collaborating with other areas of science, and why co-creation means more than just working with policymakers to understand their needs... and why both are needed to give really good quality policy advice.

In this bonus episode shared from the limited-run podcast The Trust Race, Shane Bergin discusses public and political trust in science, using the advice on mask-wearing during the Covid-19 pandemic as an example.

To listen to other episodes from The Trust Race, visit https://open.spotify.com/show/6jQ59Bxy7vGRecSzinxuaj.

'The Trust Race' has received funding from the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 870883. The information and opinions are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Commission.

Education is an interesting case study for the science-policy interface. It combines a complex, multi-stakeholder ecosystem, a range of different academic approaches, and very high political salience. Maybe that's why John O'Connor, a senior policymaker in the Qualifications and Quality Assurance Authority of Ireland, made it the subject of his PhD. He's here to tell us what makes science advice effective in education — and what makes it fail.

 

With a bonus whirlwind tour of the entire science-policy ecosystem in Ireland!

Ninety-nine brave adventurers have gone before. Who shall have the privilege of being the one hundredth guest on the Science for Policy podcast?

And will they survive the ordeal?

Join our brand new podcast community -- discuss what you've heard, ask questions to guests and and meet fellow listeners! Sign up here: https://join.slack.com/t/scienceforpol-iju8175/shared_invite/zt-1q94fmb6r-oG3q8QKf8cxXnKMNCkR77A 

Is financial advice science advice? How independent can a financial advisor be? Did the world of economic policy advisors have their epiphany in 2008 in the same way that other sciences did in 2020? If anyone can answer these questions, it's Professor Jan-Pieter Krahnen!

In a complex science-for-policy ecosystem, what role is filled by the so-called 'knowledge-brokering organisation'? It's not a scientific organisation, nor a science advisor, nor a think-tank, nor a policymaker. Yet these organisations abound and they can be highly influential — as Professor James Downe and Dr Eleanor MacKillop argue.

 

In this episode, these two experts on this under-appreciated corner of the policymaking world explain to Toby Wardman the roles, challenges and strategies that characterise the work of knowledge-brokering organisations around the world.

What's that misshapen, lumbering form looming from the shadows? Why, it's the old linear model of science advice, already killed a thousand times over, but somehow still living -- and it's coming for YOU.

 

Luckily, we have Professor Carina Keskitalo to hammer (another) stake into the heart of this monstrosity, with a tour-de-force about why you can't just tell your social scientists to shut up and do stakeholder engagement. Shoulder your crossbow, clutch your crucifix and enjoy!

 

Resources mentioned in this episode

• The social aspects of environmental and climate change. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-191872 

Help us choose a channel for our listeners' community: https://bit.ly/3XE8LRY 

When science advisors are employed by governments, how do they reconcile the competing needs to accurately convey the science, while ensuring it can be of maximum use in the current political context?

Dr Christiane Gerblinger has one answer: her research suggests that advisors adopt strategies to make themselves deliberately ignorable.

 

Resources mentioned in this episode

• How Government Experts Self-Sabotage: The language of the rebuffed. https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/how-government-experts-self-sabotage 

So you want to be a science advisor? The bad news: there aren't really any books, powerpoint presentations or training courses that can teach you the skills you need. The good news: doctoral researcher Noam Obermeister has found out everything he can about the learning journeys of scientists who work with policymakers, both what they learn and how. And he might even be able to tell you if you will sink or swim.

 

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Twitter thread on science advisors' learning journeys: https://twitter.com/NObermeister/status/1584932780840194048 

On this podcast, and in the world of science advice studies generally, we spend a lot of time discussing the science-policy interface and what should exist on the 'science' side of it in order to most effectively support policymaking. But Professor Sir Geoff Mulgan asks a different question: what happens on the other side of the interface, when policymakers are landed with a vast array of knowledge, theory and opinion, and have to somehow construct from that — and their own political and economic realities — an intelligible way forward.

We live in an age of crisis — and the crises that we face are more numerous, more widespread and more overlapping than ever before. In the chaos of high-pressure, life-and-death policymaking, politicians could benefit not just from scientific advice but also from the input of ethicists. That's where Barbara Prainsack, chair of the European Group on Ethics and New Technologies, comes into the picture.

 

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Statement on values in times of crisis: https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/document/1690e112-9826-4ede-811b-fad63167b9d9_en (available from 22 November)
• Evidence review report and Scientific opinion on strategic crisis management in the EU: https://www.sapea.info/crisis/ (available from 22 November)

Evidence is not the exclusive province of science advisors and science advice institutions. And especially in policy areas where those institutions are weak or absent, other forces rush to fill the vacuum: stakeholders, lobbyists, interest groups.

 

In this epsiode, Dr Rebecca Natow talks to Toby Wardman about federal education policy in the US, a domain that employs a 'negotiated rulemaking' methodology to try to find consensus among many stakeholders — even though scientific input is also legally mandated. The result is a swirling, politically-infused debate around the meaning of both quantitative and qualitative evidence.

 

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Reexamining the federal role in higher education https://www.tcpress.com/reexamining-the-federal-role-in-higher-education-9780807766767 
• Higher education rulemaking: the politics of creating regulatory policy https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/11563/higher-education-rulemaking