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News & Views item - March 2012 |
A Collaboratively-Derived Science-Policy Research Agenda. (March 10, 2012)
An initiative begun at The University of Cambridge and now publish in PLoS-1-one has produced a list of 40 “key unanswered questions” in an attempt to shrink the gulf between scientists and policy-makers by listing a short list of 40 topics for future work.
Below we reprint the publication's abstract followed by a listing of the 40 topics.
Abstract
The
need for policy makers to understand science and for scientists to understand
policy processes is widely recognised. However, the science-policy relationship
is sometimes difficult and occasionally dysfunctional; it is also increasingly
visible, because it must deal with contentious issues, or itself becomes a
matter of public controversy, or both. We suggest that identifying key
unanswered questions on the relationship between science and policy will
catalyse and focus research in this field. To identify these questions, a
collaborative procedure was employed with 52 participants selected to cover a
wide range of experience in both science and policy, including people from
government, non-governmental organisations, academia and industry. These
participants consulted with colleagues and submitted 239 questions. An initial
round of voting was followed by a workshop in which 40 of the most important
questions were identified by further discussion and voting. The resulting list
includes questions about the effectiveness of science-based decision-making
structures; the nature and legitimacy of expertise; the consequences of changes
such as increasing transparency; choices among different sources of evidence;
the implications of new means of characterising and representing uncertainties;
and ways in which policy and political processes affect what counts as
authoritative evidence. We expect this exercise to identify important
theoretical questions and to help improve the mutual understanding and
effectiveness of those working at the interface of science and policy.