Identifying the Science and Technology Dimensions of Emerging Public Policy Issues through Horizon Scanning

Public policy requires public support, which in turn implies a need to enable the public not just to understand policy but also to be engaged in its development. Where complex science and technology issues are involved in policy making, this takes time, so it is important to identify emerging issues of this type and prepare engagement plans. In our horizon scanning exercise, we used a modified Delphi technique [1]. A wide group of people with interests in the science and policy interface (drawn from policy makers, policy adviser, practitioners, the private sector and academics) elicited a long list of emergent policy issues in which science and technology would feature strongly and which would also necessitate public engagement as policies are developed. This was then refined to a short list of top priorities for policy makers. Thirty issues were identified within broad areas of business and technology; energy and environment; government, politics and education; health, healthcare, population and aging; information, communication, infrastructure and transport; and public safety and national security.     

Policy and data-intensive scientific discovery in the beginning of the 21st century

Recent developments in our ability to capture, curate, and analyze data, the field of data-intensive science (DIS), have indeed made these interesting and challenging times for scientific practice as well as policy making in real time. We are confronted with immense datasets that challenge our ability to pool, transfer, analyze, or interpret scientific observations. We have more data available than ever before, yet more questions to be answered as well, and no clear path to answer them. We are excited by the potential for science-based solutions to humankind's problems, yet stymied by the limitations of our current cyberinfrastructure and existing public policies. Importantly, DIS signals a transformation of the hypothesis-driven tradition of science ("first hypothesize, then experiment") to one that is typified by "first experiment, then hypothesize" mode of discovery. Another hallmark of DIS is that it amasses data that are public goods (i.e., creates a "commons") that can further be creatively mined for various applications in different sectors. As such, this calls for a science policy vision that is long term. We herein reflect on how best to approach to policy making at this critical inflection point when DIS applications are being diversified in agriculture, ecology, marine biology, and environmental research internationally. This article outlines the key policy issues and gaps that emerged from the multidisciplinary discussions at the NSF-funded DIS workshop held at the Seattle Children's Research Institute in Seattle, on September 19-20, 2010.     

Public discourses of stem cell science in Singapore (1997–2010)

In most industrialized countries, policy debates around stem cell science manifest in public discourse. Assuming that a functioning public sphere exists where matters of science policy can be discussed, examination of these discourses can help provide an understanding of how science policies evolve. The aim of this paper is to provide a preliminary analysis of how the public discourses around stem cell science have developed in Singapore. Using a theoretical model of “focused discourse,” our analysis indicates that there have been five distinct phases, marked by discernible shifts that reflect important changes in how biomedical science is funded in Singapore. While our results are preliminary, we argue that public discourses around science policies do exist in Singapore but are limited by a lack of diversity that would be expected in a more heterogeneous public sphere.     

The human genome as public: Justifications and implications

Since the human genome was decoded, great emphasis has been placed on the unique, personal nature of the genome, along with the benefits that personalized medicine can bring to individuals and the importance of safeguarding genetic privacy. As a result, an equally important aspect of the human genome – its common nature – has been underappreciated and underrepresented in the ethics literature and policy dialogue surrounding genetics and genomics. This article will argue that, just as the personal nature of the genome has been used to reinforce individual rights and justify important privacy protections, so too the common nature of the genome can be employed to support protections of the genome at a population level and policies designed to promote the public's wellbeing. In order for public health officials to have the authority to develop genetics policies for the sake of the public good, the genome must have not only a common, but also a public, dimension. This article contends that DNA carries a public dimension through the use of two conceptual frameworks: the common heritage (CH) framework and the common resource (CR) framework. Both frameworks establish a public interest in the human genome, but the CH framework can be used to justify policies aimed at preserving and protecting the genome, while the CR framework can be employed to justify policies for utilizing the genome for the public benefit. A variety of possible policy implications are discussed, with special attention paid to the use of large‐scale genomics databases for public health research.     

Science,Politics and Policy: How Michiganders think about the Risks Facing the Great Lakes

The Great Lakes region is an important ecological asset for the United States, yet studies show that several environmental risks threaten its viability. As a result, it is important to respond to these risks with effective policies. When and how policy is implemented often depends on public opinion and perceptions; yet, we understand little about how individuals from the Great Lakes region construct opinions about the threats facing the lakes. We seek to understand how individuals from the state of Michigan form opinions on three risks to the lakes: invasive Asian carp, climate change, and offshore drilling. To do this, we evaluate the utility of two dominant models of environmental opinion formation: trust and deference to scientific authority, and partisan bias and motivated reasoning. We find that when issues have been politicized, opinion is greatly influenced by political factors like partisanship but that trust and deference as well as underlying environmental attitudes play a more important role for issues that have not been politicized. We discuss the implications of these findings in terms of policy and communication in Michigan, arguing that if we want Michiganders to support policy consistent with science, they must view risk in ways that are consistent with scientific consensus. For that to happen, advocates and policy makers must focus on reducing the political rhetoric around these threats, developing communication that taps into underlying trust and deference to science, and using underlying attitudes about the role of government in environmental protection to promote environmental policy.     

Dual-use review policies of biomedical research journals

To address biosecurity issues, government agencies, academic institutions, and professional societies have developed policies concerning the publication of "dual-use" biomedical research-that is, research that could be readily applied to cause significant harm to the public, the environment, or national security. We conducted an e-mail survey of life science journals to determine the percentage that have a dual-use policy. Of the 155 journals that responded to our survey (response rate 39%), only 7.7% stated that they had a written dual-use policy and only 5.8% said they had experience reviewing dual-use research in the past 5 years. Among the potential predictors we investigated, the one most highly associated with a journal having a written dual-use policy was membership in the Nature Publishing Group (positive association). When considered individually, both previous experience with reviewing dual-use research and the journal's impact factor appeared to be positively associated with having a written dual-use policy, but only the former remained significant after adjusting for publishing group. Although preventing the misuse of scientific research for terrorist or criminal purposes is an important concern, few biomedical journals have dual-use review policies. Journals that are likely to review research that raises potential dual-use concerns should consider developing dual-use policies.     

Marginalizing Experience: A Critical Analysis of Public Discourse Surrounding Stem Cell Research in Australia (2005�C6)

Over the past decade, stem cell science has generated considerable public and political debate. These debates tend to focus on issues concerning the protection of nascent human life and the need to generate medical and therapeutic treatments for the sick and vulnerable. The framing of the public debate around these issues not only dichotomises and oversimplifies the issues at stake, but tends to marginalise certain types of voices, such as the women who donate their eggs and/or embryos to stem cell research and the patients who might benefit from its potential clinical outcomes. This paper draws on empirical research conducted on a recent stem cell policy episode in Australia. From the qualitative examination of 109 newspaper opinion editorials and twenty-three in-depth interviews, it is argued that these voices are marginalised because they are based on discourses that have less epistemological status in public debate. Our results suggest that the personal experiences of women and patients are marginalised by the alliances that form between more powerful discourse communities that use science as a source of authority and legitimation. It is argued that members of these communities establish legitimacy and assert authority in public debate by discursively deploying science in claims that marginalise other epistemologies. Implications are discussed along with suggestions for a more enriched and inclusive public debate.     

Policy Language in Restoration Ecology

Relating restoration ecology to policy is one of the aims of the Society for Ecological Restoration and its journal Restoration Ecology. As an interdisciplinary team of researchers in both ecological science and political science, we have struggled with how policy‐relevant language is and could be deployed in restoration ecology. Using language in scientific publications that resonates with overarching policy questions may facilitate linkages between researcher investigations and decision‐makers' concerns on all levels. Climate change is the most important environmental problem of our time and to provide policymakers with new relevant knowledge on this problem is of outmost importance. To determine whether or not policy‐specific language was being included in restoration ecology science, we surveyed the field of restoration ecology from 2008 to 2010, identifying 1,029 articles, which we further examined for the inclusion of climate change as a key element of the research. We found that of the 58 articles with “climate change” or “global warming” in the abstract, only 3 identified specific policies relevant to the research results. We believe that restoration ecologists are failing to include themselves in policy formation and implementation of issues such as climate change within journals focused on restoration ecology. We suggest that more explicit reference to policies and terminology recognizable to policymakers might enhance the impact of restoration ecology on decision‐making processes.     

Vaccine mandates,value pluralism,and policy diversity

Political communities across the world have recently sought to tackle rising rates of vaccine hesitancy and refusal, by implementing coercive immunization programs, or by making existing immunization programs more coercive. Many academics and advocates of public health have applauded these policy developments, and they have invoked ethical reasons for implementing or strengthening vaccine mandates. Others have criticized these policies on ethical grounds, for undermining liberty, and as symptoms of broader government overreach. But such arguments often obscure or abstract away from the diverse values that are relevant to the ethical justifications of particular political communities’ vaccine‐mandate policies. We argue for an expansive conception of the normative issues relevant to deciding whether and how to establish or reform vaccine mandates, and we propose a schema by which to organize our thoughts about the ways in which different kinds of vaccine‐mandate policies implicate various values.     

Communicating about ocean health: theoretical and practical considerations

As anthropogenic stressors threaten the health of marine ecosystems, there is a need to better understand how the public processes and responds to information about ocean health. Recent studies of public perceptions about ocean issues report high concern but limited knowledge, prompting calls for information campaigns to mobilize public support for ocean restoration policy. Drawing on the literature from communication, psychology and related social science disciplines, we consider a set of social-cognitive challenges that researchers and advocates are likely to encounter when communicating with the public about ocean health and emerging marine diseases—namely, the psychological distance at which ocean issues are construed, the unfamiliarity of aquatic systems to many members of the public and the potential for marine health issues to be interpreted through politicized schemas that encourage motivated reasoning over the dispassionate consideration of scientific evidence. We offer theory-based strategies to help public outreach efforts address these challenges and present data from a recent experiment exploring the role of message framing (emphasizing the public health or environmental consequences of marine disease) in shaping public support for environmental policy.     

Scientific Independence and Credibility in Sociopolitical Processes

Abstract: Absence of scientific independence can be associated with a lack of impartiality and therefore with a lack of credibility. Yet scientific credibility is essential for effective participation in sociopolitical processes—processes that necessarily involve politics and often result in decisions about land management, conservation, and public policy. All scientists are aware of these processes, many wish to participate, and some wish to advocate for their personal policy preferences. However, scientists who lack impartiality often create the perception of bias, and they can suffer a concomitant loss of credibility. Some policy-makers also have personal preferences for certain policies, and the term normative policies can be used here even though all policies can be viewed as normative in the sense that they involve multiple inputs. Hence, the idea that scientists must provide unbiased information for unbiased application by policy-makers is sometimes wrong. For scientists to be effective participants in sociopolitical processes that lead to conservation policies or related actions, they should inform the public about issues while avoiding direct involvement in policy development and the political considerations this necessarily entails. Scientists should only participate in the decision-making process with impartial information and in their proper role as objective scientists.     

Science and policy: valuing framing, language and listening

This paper considers the context for science contributing to policy development and explores some critical issues that should inform science advocacy and influence with policy makers. The paper argues that the key challenges are at least as much in educating conservation scientists and science communicators about society and policy making as they are in educating society and policy makers about science. The importance of developing processes to ensure that scientists and science communicators invest in the development of relationships based on respect and understanding of their audience in both communities and amongst policy makers provides a critical first step. The objectives of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation acknowledge the importance of developing the capacities and public engagement necessary to implement the Strategy, including knowledge transfer and community capacity building. However, the development of targets to equip institutions and plant conservation professionals to explicitly address the barriers to influencing policy development through knowledge transfer and integration require further consideration.     

Sharing genomes: an integrated approach to funding, managing and distributing genomic clone resources

National biological resource centres have a vital role in archiving and distributing biological reagents that result from large-scale genome programmes. These reagents are invaluable to the research community as they enable independent validation of results disclosed in peer review and provide tools that facilitate the next steps in discovery science. Here we address the crucial issues of open access, quality of materials, integration with public databases and sustainability of resources.     

Newspaper Portrayals,Local Policies,and Dog-Supportive Public Space: Who's Wagging Whom?

ABSTRACT

Dog-walking promotes physical activity and positive social interactions, and thus dog-walking has implications for people's physical and mental health. As a result, experts in public health have endorsed designing and managing public space to support dog-walking. Nevertheless, the presence of dogs in public space is subject to negotiation and can be controversial. Generally, municipal governments or local councils exercise political jurisdiction over both dogs and public space. As a case study, we systematically collected and analyzed a local newspaper's portrayals of issues relating to dog-walking in public space. Our purpose was to understand how public and policy agendas were being represented by local media, during a period of time when local policies on dog ownership and dog-supportive public space were being reviewed and revised. The analysis involved three phases: 1) thematic content analysis; 2) issue framing analysis; and 3) policy analysis. Thematically, we found that social conflict predominated. In terms of issue framing, local policy and individual dog owner behavior were both problematized. Over time, the policy agenda evolved to emphasize the design and management of public space, especially park land. Policy-makers presented this emphasis on public space as a proactive strategy to reduce social conflict and to promote compliance with existing rules on dog ownership. When it comes to promoting dog-walking to benefit animal welfare and human health, our findings underscore the importance of paying close attention to local policies and media coverage. In fact, we found that endogenous conflict and public controversies can actually represent significant opportunities to bring about positive changes in the lives of humans and nonhuman animals.     

BIOETHICS AND DEMOCRACY: COMPETING ROLES OF NATIONAL BIOETHICS ORGANISATIONS

In establishing National Bioethics Organisations (NBOs), liberal democracies seek to acknowledge the diversity of strongly held ethical positions and the imperative to engage in public debate about important bioethical decisions. NBOs are typically given a range of responsibilities, including contributing to and stimulating public debate; providing expert opinion on relevant issues for policy deliberations; and developing public policy. The state is now found to have an interest in areas previously thought to be a matter of individual choice. NBOs can provide one way of opening up public debate to allow the diversity of views to be heard in a manner that is well‐informed, articulate and responsive to both expert and ‘lay’ public views. We draw on debates in political theory about democratic decision‐making and on the policy making roles of some key NBOs. We are particularly interested in examining the capacity of NBOs to meet the democratic ideal of effective participation by the public, or citizenry, especially by those who are directly affected by the policies, in the development of effective public policy. We provide a basic framework for policy development involving NBOs that can begin to meet this ideal, a process of ‘contested deliberation’.     

In search of the Holy Grail: Media discourse and the new human genetics

It has widely been recognized that the media play a key role in framing debates about genetic issues. This paper provides an overview of the major areas of debate within the social scientific literature on media, public understanding of science and human genetics. It evaluates current approaches to assessing the role of the media in influencing public policy debates. It argues that an analysis of the strategies of news sources should occupy a central role in furthering understanding about the ways in which various social actors seek to influence public policy agendas. At present, within the field of human genetics, only a handful of researchers have systematically examined the strategies of news sources from the perspective of the sources themselves. While recent research has focused upon identifying the major sources and how they are used in science reporting, there remains much to be done in uncovering the processes of negotiation and contestation among social actors prior to issues gaining media coverage.     

Examining arts education policy development through policy frameworks

ABSTRACT

While policy formation frameworks are commonly used to understand public policy developments, scholars rarely have used them to reflect on arts education policies. Such analysis is important because it can assist both in identifying the genesis of past policies, including who the important actors are, how issues are framed and problematized, and how specific solutions are designed, as well as how to interpret unfolding policies. In this article, I review three prominent policy frameworks: Kingdon's “multiple streams framework,” Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith's “advocacy coalition framework,” and Baumgartner and Jones' “punctuated equilibrium framework.” After reviewing the frameworks, I address the following questions: (a) How would these conceptual frameworks predict arts education policy development to proceed? (b) How would these conceptual frameworks explain constituents and coalitions that affect the arts education policy sphere? (c) How would these conceptual frameworks illuminate precipitating events that drive the policy development process? I apply the frameworks to several instances of arts education policy development, including the formal designation of the arts as a core subjects under the Goals 2000: Educate America Act of 1994 (P.L. 103-227), the development of the 2014 National Core Arts Standards, and music's enumeration in the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015. Because these three policy issues differ in important ways, they can help to illuminate the breadth of arts education policy.     

HUMAN DIGNITY IN INTERNATIONAL POLICY DOCUMENTS: A USEFUL CRITERION FOR PUBLIC POLICY?

Current developments in biomedicine are presenting us with difficult ethical decisions and raising complex policy questions about how to regulate these new developments. Particularly vexing for governments have been issues related to human embryo experimentation. Because some of the most promising biomedical developments, such as stem cell research and nuclear somatic transfer, involve such experimentation, several international bodies have drafted documents aimed to provide guidance to governments when developing biomedical science policy. Here I focus on two such documents: the Council of Europe's Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being and the Additional Protocol to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being. I argue that by using human dignity as a criterion to determine the permissibility of particular human embryo research practices, these documents cannot aid in identifying research that would be contrary to human dignity. Thus, they fail to guide public policy on embryo experimentation. Their use of human dignity as a criterion makes their task of offering guidance unfeasible because the concept as used in these documents is too vague and is applied in contradictory ways. I discuss the main goals of these documents and their claims in relation to human embryo research. I then discuss how they have influenced public policy in several countries. Finally, I show that although these Council of Europe treaties attempt to serve as public policy guides in the area of embryo research, they fail to do so.     

Mental health policies on reporting child sexual abuse and physician‐patient sexual relationships

The reporting of child sexual abuse (CSA) and physician-patient sexual relationships (PPSR) are currently the focus of professional, legal and media attention in several countries. This paper briefly reviews mental health policies on these issues and reports on a WPA survey of them. While the WPA Madrid Declaration permits breaching confidentiality for mandatory reporting of CSA and clearly prohibits PPSR, it is not known how or to what extent these policies are implemented in WPA Member Societies’ countries. It is also not known whether policies or laws exist on these topics nationally or to what extent psychiatrists and the public are aware of them. Representatives of WPA Member Societies were e-mailed a survey about issues pertaining to CSA and PPSR. Fifty-one percent of 109 countries replied. All reporting countries had laws or policies regarding the reporting of CSA, but this was often voluntary (63%) and without protection for reporting psychiatrists either by law (29%) or by Member Societies (27%). A substantial number of psychiatric leaders did not know the law (27%) or their Society’s policy (11%) on these matters. With respect to PPSR, some reporting countries lacked laws or policies about PPSR with current (17%) or past (56%) patients. Fewer than half of responding representatives believed that their Society’s members or the public were well informed about the laws and policies pertaining to CSA or PPSR. There is clearly a wide range of laws, policies and practices about CSA and PPSR in WPA Member Societies’ countries. There is a need in some countries for laws or supplemental policies to facilitate the protection of vulnerable child and adult patients through clear, mandatory reporting policies for CSA and PPSR. Mechanisms to protect and support reporting psychiatrists should also be developed where they do not already exist. There is also a need in some countries to develop strategies to improve the education of psychiatrists, trainees, and the public on these issues.     

Spécificité des dilemmes éthiques résultant des travaux développés en neurosciences: émergence d’une neuroéthique

As neurosciences improve our knowledge about the brain for defining behaviour, medical ethics and social policy, what are the implications of new possibilities of technical intervention on our brain? Neuroethics defines a new field of ethics where scientists and ethicists, and also journalists and politicians, are beginning to reflect on social issues resulting from applications of the work of neuroscience in areas such as moral vision, decision-making, conduct and policies. It is likely that the potential application of new knowledge to human behaviour will generate a great deal of ethical and public policy concern in many aspects of everyday life, from child care and school programs to improvements or maintenance of adult capabilities. Neuroscience will also challenge social fields as diverse as forensic psychiatry, sports, corporate hiring and the judiciary. As neurosciences advance, it is important to have a framework that might help to guide the utilization of the new knowledge.