Future directions for scientific advice in Europe

Across Europe, scientific evidence and advice is in great demand, to inform policies and decision making on issues such as climate change, new technologies and environmental regulation. But the diversity of political cultures and attitudes to expertise in different European countries can make the task of designing EU-wide advisory institutions and processes both sensitive and complex. In January 2015, President Juncker asked Commissioner Moedas to report on options for improving scientific advice within the European Commission. At a time when these issues are higher than usual on the political agenda, it is important that the case for scientific advice and evidence-informed policy is articulated and analysed afresh. To support these efforts, this collection brings together agenda-setting essays by policymakers, practitioners, scientists and scholars from across Europe. Authors include Anne Glover, Ulrike Felt, Robert Madelin, Andy Stirling, Vladimír Šucha and Jos van der Meer. Their contributions outline various challenges but also constructive ways forward for scientific advice in Europe

Precaution in the governance of technology

Equally at national and the highest international levels, few issues in technology governance are more vexed than those around the precautionary principle. Often using colourful rhetoric – and frequently paying scant attention to the substantive form taken by precaution in any given setting, even ostensibly academic analyses accuse precautionary approaches of being ‘dangerous’, ‘arbitrary’, ‘capricious’ and ‘irrational’ – somehow serving indiscriminately to ‘stifle discovery’, ‘suppress innovation’ and foster an 'anti-technology’ climate. The widely advocated alternative is ‘science based’ risk assessment – under which single aggregated probabilities are assigned to supposedly definitively-characterised possibilities and asserted to offer sufficient representations of the many intractable dimensions of uncertainty, ambiguity and ignorance. The high economic and political stakes combine with their expediency to entrenched institutional and technological interests, to intensify these arguments. Amidst all the noise, it is easy to miss the more balanced, reasonable realities of precaution. By reference to a large literature on all sides of these debates, this paper shows how these pressures are not only misleading, but themselves seriously unscientific – leading to potentially grave vulnerabilities. Experience over more than a century in technology governance, shows that the dominant issues are not about calculation of probabilities, but about the effects of power in innovation and regulatory systems, the need for balanced consideration of alternative options, scrutinising claimed benefits as much as alleged risks and always being vigilant for the ever-present possibility of surprise. In this light, it is not rational to assert that incertitudes of many difficult kinds must always take the convenient forms susceptible to risk assessment. To invoke the name of science as a whole, in seeking to force such practices, is gravely undermining of science itself. And these pressures also seriously misrepresent the nature of innovation processes, in which the 2 branching evolutionary dynamic means that concerns over particular trajectories simply help to favour alternative innovation pathways. Precaution is about steering innovation, not blocking it. It is not necessarily about ‘banning’ anything, but simply taking the time and effort to gather deeper and more relevant information and consider wider options. Under conditions of incertitude to which risk assessment is – even under its own definition – quite simply inapplicable, precaution offers a means to build more robust understandings of the implications of divergent views of the world and more diverse possibilities for action. Of course, like risk assessment, precaution is sometimes implemented in mistaken or exaggerated ways. But the reason such a sensible, measured approach is the object of such intense general criticism, has more to do with the pervasive imprints of power in and around conventional regulatory processes, than it does with any intrinsic features of precaution itself. Whilst partisan lobbying is legitimate in a democracy as a way to advance narrow sectoral interests, it is unfortunate when such rhetorics seek spuriously to don the clothing of disinterested science and reason in the public interest. Taking the best of all approaches, this paper ends by outlining a general framework under which more rigorous and comprehensive precautionary forms of appraisal, can be reconciled with riskbased approaches under conditions where these remain applicable. A number of practical implications arise for innovation and regulatory policy alike, spanning many different sectors of emerging technologies. In the end, precaution is identified to be about escaping from technocratic capture under which sectoral interests use narrow risk assessment to force particular views of the world. What precaution offers to enable instead is more democratic choice under ever-present uncertainties, over the best directions to be taken by innovation in any given field

Developing ‘Nexus Capabilities’: towards transdisciplinary methodologies

Draft discussion paper (initially without references) for review at an ESRC Nexus Network workshop, to be held at the University of Sussex, 29-30th June 2015. Many ideas summarised here have been further developed and explored over the ten-year research programme of the STEPS Centre

New Models of Technology Assessment for Development

This report explores the role that ‘new models’ of technology assessment can play in improving the lives of poor and vulnerable populations in the developing world. The ‘new models’ addressed here combine citizen and decision-maker participation with technical expertise. They are virtual and networked rather than being based in a single office of technology assessment (as was the case in the United States in the 1970s-90s). They are flexible enough to address issues across disciplines and are increasingly transnational or global in their reach and scope. The report argues that these new models of technology assessment can make a vital contribution to informing policies and strategies around innovation, particularly in developing regions. They are most beneficial if they enable the broadening out of inputs to technology assessment, and the opening up of political debate around possible directions of technological change and their interactions with social and environmental systems. Beyond the process of technology assessment itself, the report argues that governance systems within which these processes are embedded play an important role in determining the impact and effectiveness of technology assessment. Finally, the report argues for training and capacity-building in technology assessment methodologies in developing countries, and support for internationally co-ordinated technology assessment efforts to address global and regional development challenges

SPRU report to the SPLiCE Project: a review of 'social appraisal' methodologies

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A global picture of industrial interdependencies between civil and military nuclear infrastructures

Noting the increasingly unfavourable economic and operational position of nuclear power around the world, this paper reviews evidence for a hitherto neglected connection between international commitments to civil and military nuclear infrastructures. Reviewing well established understandings of interlinkages associated with fissile materials and other nuclear weapons related substances, the paper surveys a distinct – and currently potentially more important – kind of interdependency that has up to now received virtually no policy attention. This relates to the national industrial supply chains necessary for the manufacture and operation of nuclear propelled submarines, that are deemed central to strategic military doctrine in a few states – and to burgeoning ambitions in a number of others. One of the most striking features of these interdependencies, is that evidence is so strong in strategic military literatures, but that the issue is typically so neglected in energy policy analysis. So the repercussions extend beyond specific domains of civil and military nuclear policy making in themselves – significant as these may be. Across a range of countries, arguably the most important implications arise for the rigour and transparency of mainstream academic and energy policy analysis and the quality and accountability of wider democratic processes – that are failing to give due attention to the evident force of these connections. With civil nuclear power now increasingly recognised to be growing obsolescent as a low carbon energy source, but key military capabilities evidently depending so strongly on its maintenance, a potentially important new window of opportunity may be opening up for robust measures to reduce global military nuclear threats

Innovation, sustainability and democracy: an analysis of grassroots contributions

In this paper we introduce an area of activity that has flourished for decades in all corners of the globe, namely grassroots innovation for sustainable development. We also argue why innovation in general is a matter for democracy. Combining these two points, we explore how grassroots innovation can contribute to what we call innovation democracy, and help guide innovation so that it supports rather than hinders social justice and environmental resilience. Drawing upon qualitative case studies from empirical domains including energy, food, and manufacture, we suggest it does so in four related ways: 1. Processes of grassroots innovation can help in their own right to cultivate the more democratic practice of innovation more generally. 2. Grassroots innovations that result from these processes can support citizens and activities in ways that can contribute to practice of democracy. 3. Grassroots innovations can create particular empowering sociotechnical configurations that might otherwise be suppressed by interests around more mainstream innovation systems. 4. Grassroots innovations can help nurture general levels of social diversity that are important for the health of democracy in its widest political senses. The paper finishes with a few suggestions for how societies committed to innovation democracy can better support and benefit from grassroots activity, by working at changes in culture, infrastructure, training, investment, and openness

Grassroots innovations and democracy

In this working paper we introduce an area of activity that has flourished for decades in all corners of the globe, namely grassroots innovation for sustainable development. We also argue why innovation in general is a matter for democracy. Combining these two points, we explore how grassroots innovation can contribute to what we call innovation democracy, and help guide innovation so that it supports rather than hinders social justice and environmental resilience. We suggest it does so in four related ways: 1. Processes of grassroots innovation can help in their own right to cultivate the more democratic practice of innovation. 2. Grassroots innovations can support citizens and their activities in more general ways that contribute to wider democracy. 3. Grassroots innovations create empowering 'sociotechnical configurations' that would otherwise be suppressed by existing innovation systems. 4. Grassroots innovations can help nurture general levels of social diversity that are important for democracy in its widest sense. The working paper finishes with a few suggestions for how societies committed to innovation democracy can better support and benefit from grassroots innovation activity. Action for deeper grassroots participation in innovation democracy has to work on culture, infrastructure, training, investment, and openness. An earlier version of this working paper, with lighter referencing, appeared originally in the Big Ideas series of 'thinkpieces' organised by Friends of the Earth

Multicriteria mapping manual - version 2.0

Multicriteria mapping (MCM) is an interactive appraisal method for exploring contrasting perspectives on complex strategic and policy issues. The tool aims to help 'open up' technical assessment by systematically 'mapping' the practical implications of alternative options, issues, uncertainties and values. MCM uniquely bridges qualitative and quantitative approaches, and helps to get the best of both. It allows great flexibility, offering an appraisal method that is strongly grounded in theory but highly unconstrained in practice. This versatility has been reflected in its use internationally to explore contentious decisions in the fields of energy strategy, food production, environmental policy, radioactive waste management and public health. This MCM Manual offers basic advice on how to do multicriteria mapping. It suggests how to: design and build a typical MCM project; engage with participants; and analyse results – and get the most out of the online MCM tool. The online MCM software tool provides its own operational help so the manual is more focused on the general approach