Exclusive Look at the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology’s new Social Science Section

The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) is Parliament’s in-house source of independent, balanced and accessible analysis of public policy issues related to science and technology. In partnership with the ESRC and with the support of UCL, POST is establishing a dedicated Social Science Section to provide parliamentarians with more access to social science research evidence. Ahead of its launch this week, we’ve asked for reflections from Adam Afriyie MP (Chair of POST), Jason Blackstock (UCL), Paul Boyle (ESRC) and Chris Tyler (POST) on the making of the Social Science Section and how it will seek to improve the impact of social science in policy-making

Designing Procedural Mechanisms for the Governance of Solar Radiation Management Field Experiments: Workshop Report

The unexpected ocean fertilization experiment off the west coast of Canada in 2012 highlights the reality that non-governmental actors can already initiate small- to medium-scale environmental experiments and solar radiation management (SRM) field experiments with no government funding or approval. Without careful consideration and development of a governance framework for these types of experimentation, governments could be caught out having to respond ad hoc to situations driven by non-governmental actors. This two-day workshop considered and evaluated governance mechanisms that may be useful for managing proposed SRM field experiments. Two specific procedural mechanisms were under consideration: environmental impact assessments and research registries. To ensure discussions were as realistic as possible, participants used a set of recently published SRM field experiment proposals as hypothetical examples when considering and evaluating both mechanisms. The workshop operated under the Chatham House Rule, and no attempts were made to forge consensus positions or to generate policy recommendations. Rather, this workshop was exploratory in nature, with discussions ranging widely along with personal opinions on some topics

Understanding the Iranian Nuclear Equation.

Since mid-2005, the Iranian regime has embarked on a course of aggressive and public brinksmanship regarding its domestic nuclear program. This article explores this new Iranian behavior by first elucidating the range of strategic variables comprising the Iranian nuclear equation and then evaluating how recent evolutions in the international and domestic environments have altered the influence of the equation’s different variables. The analysis demonstrates that Iran’s recent brinksmanship gambit was driven largely by the regime’s desire to use the nuclear issue to garner domestic public support, and was enabled by the growing perceived inability of the international community to enact effective coercive measures against Iran. The article culminates with a recommendation that U.S. and EU policymakers seriously evaluate the hitherto dismissed alternative of accepting nuclear fuel cycle facilities on Iranian soil under the control of a multinational or international consortium. Emphasis is placed on the importance of considering such alternatives before Iran achieves nuclear technological independence