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.
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.
The world may be 99.7% doomed, but at least we have Chloe Hill on the line to point out what went wrong and how the science advisors could have made a difference.
The emergence of English as the dominant international language of science has some significant downsides. As part of his presidency of the International Network for Governmental Science Advice, Professor Rémi Quirion of Québec has made it his mission to broaden our linguistic outlook.
From Brussels to Warsaw, Professor Janusz Bujnicki is helping to shape the future of scientific advice.
Solly Zuckerman was the first chief scientific advisor to the UK government, and arguably one of the first to hold such a post in the world.
Politicians don’t really have a great understanding of the citizens they serve, according to Michael Bang Petersen.
Foresight methodology helps science advisors check their blindspots, recognise their biases, and figure out the second- and third-order ripple effects of even the most innocuous of policy interventions. And Dr Lieve Van Woensel of the European Parliament, who talks to SAPEA’s Toby Wardman in this episode, quite literally wrote the book on foresight. Resources mentioned … Read more
Dr Scott Bremer brings Toby Wardman up to speed on topics such as the inadequacy of the supply/demand dichotomy, the challenges of fitting the square peg of science into the round holes of real-world policy decisions, the relationship between scientific knowledge and other forms of knowing, and why he moonlights as a gardening therapist by the Norwegian fjords.
SAPEA is funded by the European Union. The activities of associated partners Academia Europaea and Cardiff University are funded by UKRI (grant number 10033786).
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