Behavior on a beer mat: Law, interdisciplinarity and expertise

In this paper we seek to offer an original theoretical platform for thinking about the nature of legal knowledge produced through ‘legal interdisciplinarity’. The context for our discussion is the emergence of a ‘behavioural boom’ in the field of law where researchers increasingly turn to fields like behavioural economics to encourage shifts in legal and social policy. Using a case study which explores the application of a sub-branch of psychology to civil law, we highlight serious concerns attending the capacity of lone legal researchers to meaningfully navigate non-legal domains. Central to our analysis, is the sociology of expertise and experience, and it is from this perspective that we explore the interdisciplinary process. Drawing attention to the extent to which largely “unwritten” practices and conventions inhabit disciplines and how these govern knowledge, we point to the insurmountable barriers confronting lone legal interdisciplinarians. We illustrate why that work, by contrast with genuine collaborative/interactional interdisciplinary research, should be regarded as lacking value from a policy/political perspective. This is not, however, to diminish the potential value of works of a non-collaborative nature. Noting the value of interdisciplinary work of a more provisional and creative character, and its critical importance to the legal project, we draw a critical distinction between interactional research and simulated research. This distinction we argue proves critical to identifying what interdisciplinary work can lend itself to policy application and that which cannot, as well as accommodating the fullest range of interdisciplinary research efforts to flourish

Organisational factors by sector

The WaterWatt project is an ambitious project aiming to help companies achieve greater energy efficiency in their industrial water circuits (IWC). From the outset, the WaterWatt project identified (i) low awareness of energy saving potential of industrial water circuits and (ii) uncertainty about positive economic effects as two important barriers to more investment to improve the energy efficiency of water circuits. The principal route to overcome this twin barrier is to develop an interactive online selfassessment tool, the Energy Efficiency Evaluation or E3 Platform. The two main capabilities of the planned E3 Platform are carefully designed to remove the investment barriers. On the one hand, the E3 Platform will allow industrial users to identify and calculate the unrealised energy saving potential of their water circuits. On the other hand, the E3 Platform will also be able to assist companies in working out the cost-effectiveness of any investment into water circuits, thereby indicating whether an investment in energy efficiency has positive or negative cost implications. To develop a useful and usable online tool, the WaterWatt project has relied on both technical and sociological research to gain a deep understanding of industrial water circuits in a variety of sectors and countries. This report summarises the findings of the sociological research on human and organisational challenges that companies wanting to increase the energy efficiency in their industrial water circuits face. The report identifies a range of organisational and contextual factors based on the case studies conducted at different plants and branches (see Deliverable report D3.2 and others for details): - A steelwork in Germany in June 2016 - A steel plant and a non-ferrous metal plant in Norway in October 2016 - A paper & cardboard and a sugar plant in Portugal in November 201

Technological decision-making under scientific uncertainty : preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV in South Africa

The normative analysis focuses on three aspects. First, it is evaluated whether the government acted correctly when it ignored expert advice that suggested the benefits of using AZT to prevent the risk of mother-to-child transmission outweighed the risks. Second, by exploring Thabo Mbeki's level of expertise, it explored whether he was in a position to make a reliable judgement about the state of the scientific discourse about the safety of AZT. Third, a proposal is made that prescribes how actors should proceed if they want to judge the authenticity of scientific controversies that are involved in the context of technological decision-making processes.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Energy management structure and behaviour and motivation analysis within each sector

The understanding of the organizational aspects of achieving increased energy efficiency in In-dustrial Water Circuits (IWC) over the course of the WaterWatt project has benefitted from two parallel processes. On the one hand, conducting case studies in a variety of countries and sec-tors has helped to identify and to distinguish what might be referred to as ‘universal’ and ‘local’ factors that influence the degree of energy efficiency in IWC. On the other hand, discussions within the WaterWatt consortium, partly informed by insights established during the case study research, about the direction and focus of the organizational aspects of the project have moved forward. The aim of conducting the case studies as part of WaterWatt Project is to understand how indus-trial water circuits work in practice and in particular contexts. For our technical colleagues, the case study approach has been important to help them in their efforts to incorporate the modelling of water circuits into the E3 Platform. From our sociological perspective, the case study ap-proach has proved to be an excellent method to develop our understanding of the organizational dimensions of achieving greater energy efficiency. The case studies have helped us to formulate organizational factors, as well as produce a list of relevant contextual factors, which essentially represent the conclusions of this work (see D3.3). The following sets of case studies have been conducted - A steelwork in Germany in June 2016 - A steel plant and a non-ferrous metal plant in Norway in October 2016 - A paper & cardboard and a sugar plant in Portugal in November 2016 - A steel plant in the United Kingdom in May 201

Technological decision-making under scientific uncertainty : preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV in South Africa

The normative analysis focuses on three aspects. First, it is evaluated whether the government acted correctly when it ignored expert advice that suggested the benefits of using AZT to prevent the risk of mother-to-child transmission outweighed the risks. Second, by exploring Thabo Mbeki's level of expertise, it explored whether he was in a position to make a reliable judgement about the state of the scientific discourse about the safety of AZT. Third, a proposal is made that prescribes how actors should proceed if they want to judge the authenticity of scientific controversies that are involved in the context of technological decision-making processes.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Technological decision-making under scientific uncertainty: preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV in South Africa

The normative analysis focuses on three aspects. First, it is evaluated whether the government acted correctly when it ignored expert advice that suggested the benefits of using AZT to prevent the risk of mother-to-child transmission outweighed the risks. Second, by exploring Thabo Mbeki's level of expertise, it explored whether he was in a position to make a reliable judgement about the state of the scientific discourse about the safety of AZT. Third, a proposal is made that prescribes how actors should proceed if they want to judge the authenticity of scientific controversies that are involved in the context of technological decision-making processes

The ‘science for policy’ component of the Studies of Expertise and Experience (SEE) research programme

One important and controversial aspect of the Studies in Expertise and Experience (SEE) is its model of ‘technological decision-making’. Technological decision-making (TDM) can be understood as making policy-decisions in which scientific expertise plays a non-trivial role (Krimsky 1984). The SEE approach to TDM is an attempt to find an approach that avoids the problems of both technocracy and technological populism. While experts have too much power under technocracy, they have too little under technological populism. In stark contrast to these two approaches, SEE’s TDM model of technological decision-making rests on a strict separation of political and technical aspects of technological decisions, thus avoiding the domination of one or the other aspect. Two principles, in particular, structure the model: first, it is suggested that only those with relevant technical expertise have the right to make technical judgements that belong to the technical phase. This principle guarantees the autonomy of experts when it comes to answering propositional questions of a technical nature. Second, it also insist that policy-makers must retain freedom of political choice. This means that the output of the technical phase – expert advice – must not determine the choice of policies. What the model lacks is a conceptualisation as to how exactly the gap between the technical and the political is bridged? How can expert judgements feed into the political decision-making if both spheres are supposed to operate autonomously? The solution that is proposed in this paper is to distinguish between the content of a political decision and its justification. While political actors ought to be free to choose policies, they must not be allowed to use justifications for political choices that contradict the best technical knowledge available at the time of decision-making

STS as science or politics

In a recent editorial for this journal, Sismondo makes two claims. First, he states that STS bears no responsibility for the emergence of post-truth politics. Second, he claims that debates about the nature of expertise that take place within STS are irrelevant in this context. In contrast, we argue that whether or not STS had a causal influence on the emergence of post-truth politics, there is a clear resonance between the two positions and that the current political climate makes empirically informed and scientific analyses of expertise and the form of life of science more important than ever. We argue that treating STS’s contribution to these matters as essentially political rather than scientific surrenders any special role we have as experts on the organisation and values of science and leaves STS as just one political actor among other

Imitation Game & Expertenerkennung

Woran erkennt man einen richtigen Experten? Diese Frage stellt sich im Alltag eines Wissenschaftsjournalisten täglich neu. Im OnlineCamp wollen wir uns mit dem an der Universität Cardiff entwickelten Spiel Imitation Game einer Antwort nähern und das Spiel selbst praktisch ausprobieren. Mit Hilfe von Imitation Game lassen sich unterschiedliche Formen von Expertise überprüfen. Nach einem kurzen Einleitungsvortrag, der das Problem der Erkennung von Expertise erläutert, stellt Martin Weinel ein Expertise-Konzept vor, das in den letzten Jahren an der Cardiff University entwickelt wurde und das dem Imitation Game zu Grunde liegt. Besonderes Augenmerk wird auf eine neue Form der Expertise gerichtet: die sogenannte interactional expertise, die die Fähigkeit beschreibt, die Sprache einer Experten-Domäne „fließend“ zu sprechen, ohne notwendigerweise die Praxis zu beherrschen. Der Theorie zu Folge sollten Wissenschaftsjournalisten formidable interactional experts sein, da sie Ereignisse und Entwicklungen in verschiedenen wissenschaftlichen Domänen verstehen (und kommunizieren) müssen, ohne selbst praktische Expertise in diesen Domänen zu besitzen. Die Veranstaltung bietet die Möglichkeit, mit Hilfe des Imitation Games die theoretischen Annahmen gemeinsam spielerisch und experimentell zu überprüfen. Das Imitation Game, eine soziologische Adaption des Turing Tests, wurde in den letzten Jahren als neue Methode entwickelt, um interactional expertise zu testen und zu messen