SWOT analysis of The Brain Dialogue, an Australian prototype Responsible Research and Innovation engagement program for neuroscience

ABSTRACT

Dialogue between diverse publics and scientists is essential to ensuring that fast-moving research such as neuroscience delivers knowledge and technologies that meet society’s needs, and align with its values. In Australia, neuroscience engagement programs typically promote brain research to the publics, rather than seek their input. We argue for a shift to Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)-type engagement, where scientists share their knowledge, and non-scientists share their attitudes, needs, insights and expectations, starting early in the technology-development pathway. This would allow the developmental pathway to be modified to meet society’s needs and mores. We have developed a prototype RRI engagement program for neuroscience, adapted to local Australian conditions, called The Brain Dialogue. Our preliminary results suggest it is possible to alter developmental pathways. Here, we describe its components: knowledge sharing; structured issues-driven activities that include diverse stakeholders; and social research and policy development responding directly to end-user needs. To help others set up similar programs, and the development of the RRI field, we offer a detailed, warts-and-all analysis of The Brain Dialogue’s Strengths and Weaknesses, and the Opportunities and Threats it faces.

KEYWORDS:

• Responsible Research and Innovation
• public engagement
• participatory governance
• neuroscience
• SWOT analysis

Introduction: a Responsible Research and Innovation approach

Dialogue between diverse publics and scientists is essential to ensuring that fast-moving research delivers knowledge and technologies that meet society’s needs, and align with its values. One approach to this dialogue between scientists and society is the Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) approach, which is gaining traction in Europe and the United States (Guston and Sarewitz 2002; European Commission 2012; 2016; Owen, Macnaghten, and Stilgoe 2012; Stilgoe, Owen, and Macnaghten 2013; Macnaghten et al. 2014; PCSBI 2014). Stemming from decades of work on the ethical development and use of science, this approach shifts the focus from research conducted in society, to research conducted for and with society. For von Schomberg (2013), RRI is a ‘transparent, interactive process by which societal actors and innovators become mutually responsive to each other with a view to the (ethical) acceptability, sustainability and societal desirability of the innovation process and its marketable products’. The ultimate goal is to maximise the social, economic, and scientific benefits of research by strengthening connections between end-users, including industry, and researchers.

Today, the major incentives for RRI vary by country. In Australia, poor innovation performance is potentially one (OECD 2013; Office of the Chief Economist 2016). Australia languishes at the bottom of OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard for collaboration between industry and higher education (OECD 2013), and poor information flow is a critical component of this lacklustre performance (Office of the Chief Economist 2016). Although clearly not its sole purpose, RRI has the potential to directly address this failure by stimulating information exchange between end-users, including industry, and researchers. In Europe, where RRI is most developed (European Commission 2012; 2016), the impetus comes from a growing public mistrust of science specifically, and experts in general (arguably, Brexit is the most recent expression of this).

RRI does not seek to replace scientists as experts, but aims to link them more closely to other stakeholders (European Commission 2012; 2016).¹ RRI encourages mutual learning – the scientists share their knowledge; the non-scientists share their attitudes, insights, and expectations of the science. This is achieved through structured, issues-driven activities such as forums, panels, workshops and interviews, rather than traditional one-way ‘push’ activities such as carefully contained public orations. RRI activities typically include a mix of scientists, end-users, policy-makers, industry, and patient groups, and efforts are made to have each groups’ expertise given weight. We contend that it is critical to demonstrate that RRI has ‘closed the loop’, that insights from RRI activities are captured and shared with all stakeholders, and that outcomes, which ideally include new research, translation, and policy initiatives, tracked.

While this approach may seem self-evident or common sense and is used to varying degrees in other disciplines (most notably, patient-informed medical research), it is not generally used effectively within neuroscience,² particularly in Australia. The cultural and policy reasons for this are described in more details in the Weaknesses and Threats section of our analysis.

The global spend on neuroscience is currently in the billions (NIO 2016), and there is an expectation of rapid progress in areas with great potential impact on human society, such as neuromodulation and enhancement, brain-computer interfacing, and neuromorphic computing. The deficit of effective RRI-style engagement programs risks these efforts failing to meet society’s needs, or in a worse case, neuroscience losing its social license to operate.

Accordingly at The Brain Dialogue, an initiative of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Integrative Brain Function (Brain Function CoE), we have developed an Australian prototype for this engagement model. It has been adapted to local conditions, and – to emphasise the need for neuroscience to be in tune with societal needs – renamed Responsive Research and Innovation. The Brain Dialogue’s objectives and tactics were shared with delegates at an international workshop ‘Neurotechnology and Society: Strengthening Responsible Innovation in Brain Science’ convened by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in September 2016 (Garden et al. 2016; Nowak 2016).

The Brain Dialogue launched in October 2014, initially with a team of two, each working two days a week. It currently comprises a director, program officer, and senior research associate (6 month position), each working for the project 1.5–2.5 days a week. Its annual budget, including salaries, has fluctuated between A$145,000 and A$175,000. We used a design-thinking approach to develop the program, which is described in detail in the Strengths section of our analysis. The team works with neuroscientists employed at six universities across Australia who receive research funding through the Brain Function CoE (see Figure 1 – The Brain Dialogue – connecting the stakeholders of neuroscience; Brain Function CoE 2016), and neuroscientists external to the Brain Function CoE, both with in Australia and internationally. It uses three key tactics to bridge the gap between neuroscience and society. These are: knowledge sharing; activities to motivate engagement with, and deliberation about advances in neuroscience; and social research and policy development (see Table 1). Our learnings to date suggest that this type of RRI approach will invigorate engagement between neuroscience and the publics in Australia with clear benefits to all parties.

Figure 1. The Brain Dialogue – connecting the stakeholders of neuroscience

Table 1. Tactics and Activities used for RRI by The Brian Dialogue, an initiative of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Integrative Brain Function.

TACTICS	KNOWLEDGE SHARING	contextualised, plain language summaries of research papers published at The Brain Dialogue website.	all The Brain Dialogue content published with Creative Commons copyright license (CC BY 4.0), allowing adaptation and reuse, including for commercial purposes	accessible neuroscience articles, produced in-house or externally, distributed via social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn	issues-driven forum ▸ ‘pre-reading’ distributed via social media ▸ insights and knowledge gained by neuroscientists captured through survey after forum
	ENGAGEMENT AND DELIBERATION	short animation entitled ‘Brain research is at a tipping point and life, work and play will never be the same again’	accessible neuroscience articles, produced in-house or externally, curated and distributed via Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn	articles about progress in brain research and potential impact on human society published in main stream media e.g. The Australian and The Conversation	issues-driven forum, ▸ diverse partcipants, including neuroscientists, publics, ethicists, industry etc. ▸ live demonstrations to motivate people to attend, provide authentic experience of technology ▸ participants invited to contribute via social media, email, etc. as well as by spoken comments ▸ MCs instructed on how to ensure all participants heard ▸ ‘pre-reading’ distributed via social media to help level playing field ▸ participants invited to suggest topics for upcoming forum
	SOCIAL RESEARCH AND POLICY DEVELOPMENT	Unintended Consequences, research project (internal) exploring how people use scientific literature to guide use of brain stimulation devices at home, in response to stakeholder needs revealed during other The Brain Dialogue activities	planning of new research projects (external) catalysed by Brain Dialogue activities have been documented

Analysis of The Brain Dialogue prototype

The following discussion uses a SWOT framework to analyse the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats associated with The Brain Dialogue as an RRI program. SWOT analysis is a technique used by businesses and other enterprises to develop strategy. It is based on an internal audit of the program in question, and consideration of the external factors that may affect the program’s implementation or growth (Johnson, Scholes, and Sexty 1989; Bourgeois 1996). Piercy and Giles (1989, 7) argue that the SWOT technique is a ‘dynamic and productive tool for strategic audits and strategy generation’, and effective for generating a critical and comprehensive assessment by insiders who have both a deep understanding of an organisation or program, and of the current environment.

Strengths (internal) of The Brain Dialogue

Design-thinking approach

The Brain Dialogue takes a design-thinking approach (Brown 2009; Brown and Wyatt 2015), focusing on a single future goal – improved knowledge exchange between neuroscientists and the publics for their mutual benefit – and then implementing creative ways of achieving that goal through several iterations. This involves encouraging the team to come up with out-of-the-box ideas; considering what motivates all stakeholders, including the neuroscientists and the publics, to become involved in RRI; and communicating internally to make tangible the abstract ideas behind The Brain Dialogue tactics.

Design-thinking has allowed The Brain Dialogue to develop engagement activities that are non-traditional especially within the Australian neuroscience setting (e.g. having home users of brain stimulation technology participate on an equal footing with neuroscientists at public events). It has enabled The Brain Dialogue to continuously improve its offerings (e.g. the introduction of post-event surveys of expert participants to determine if they had acquired new knowledge from non-expert participants).³

The design-thinking approach has led to the additional program strengths listed below.

Shares contextualised knowledge about neuroscience in plain language through multiple channels

For The Brain Dialogue, knowledge sharing focuses not on a simple transaction of publishing a neuroscience paper but on the translation or contextualisation of that research for stakeholders who may, or may not, have a background in scientific research. On The Brain Dialogue’s website (‘Discovery’, The Brain Dialogue 2016b), for example, Brain Function CoE research papers are offered alongside plain-language summaries that not only translate complex ideas and language but also offer insights into how neuroscience is done. Content is also shared though the social media channels.⁴ Twitter, Facebook, and a LinkedIn group, where multiple publics have access to our content and the ability to respond or ask questions. To encourage knowledge sharing, content produced by The Brain Dialogue is published using the most liberal Creative Commons copyright license Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). This means anyone can take the content and adapt and reuse it, including for commercial purposes.

To help motivate the many stakeholders of neuroscience to contemplate the potential impact of advances in brain research, The Brain Dialogue has produced a four-minute animation, called ‘Brain research is at a tipping point and life, work and play will never be the same again’, also released under a CC BY 4.0 license (The Brain Dialogue 2016a). The animation rounds up a millennium or so of brain research, including describing the modern technologies that allow today’s neuroscientists to explore the brain in unprecedented detail. It ends by contemplating how brain research will change all of our futures, and reiterating the RRI-aligned imperative to consider society’s needs and views, and for everyone to get involved.

Gives non-neuroscientists a voice

This RRI imperative to work for and with society is also reflected in The Brain Dialogue’s key objective to encourage the neuroscience community to listen to the publics in a spirit of mutual learning. To this end, The Brain Dialogue runs forums that encourage not just passive attendance by the publics, but multidirectional interaction and feedback between neuroscientists and a diverse range of stakeholders.

Zap My Brain, for example, was a series of public forums on electrical brain stimulation, including its use in discovery and medicine, and the issues arising from its rapid development, and the online marketing of brain stimulation devices (The Brain Dialogue 2016c).³ These forums included home-users, industry representatives, neuroscientists, psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, and ethicists. The events were designed to maximise interactions between neuroscientists and other participants at the forums. Plain-language summaries of research papers and other accessible ‘pre-reading’ was provided before the event via social media to help level the playing field between expert and lay participants. Participants had the option of submitting questions or comments via social media, email, paper and pencils before and during the events, or using the roving microphones. The forum MCs were briefed to facilitate audience participation and their role is seen as crucial to these events.

Reveals insights into perceptions and needs of publics that lead to change

The Brain Dialogue can only be judged a success if it can close the loop, enabling the views of non-scientists to change the research trajectory. Hence a key indicator of success is the program’s capacity to trigger new insights, initiatives, and changes in behaviour among neuroscientists, policy-makers, and ethicists. Accordingly, following the final event in the Zap My Brain series, we surveyed the expert guests. Three of the five experts responded. The findings showed that they gained insights from the other attendees, including non-specialists in the audience; that they changed their perceptions about the publics’ motivation and knowledge; and that they were prompted to consider new research in response to the ensuing discussion. For example, in response to public requests made during one forum, expert guest Professor Colleen Loo of the University of New South Wales and The Black Dog Institute in Sydney is planning a research project investigating the longterm effects and safety of home electrical brain stimulation (personal communication).

The Zap My Brian series also revealed that people who use electrical brain stimulation devices at home use scientific research papers for guidance on how to use their devices. This led to a new research project – called Unintended Consequences – exploring the consequences of scientific papers being physically available to diverse readers, while written in a style intended for a scientifically trained audience (The Brain Dialogue 2016d).

We continue to fine-tune how to facilitate and monitor investigator responses to public needs.

Weaknesses (internal) of The Brain Dialogue

Slow to gain credibility for RRI approach within the neuroscience community

A weakness of The Brain Dialogue has been its capacity to quickly win the hearts and minds of Brain Function CoE neuroscientists, and to gain credibility for RRI-type engagement. One key reason is that the program is operating in the Australian environment where neuroscience public engagement, indeed most science public engagement, still focuses on traditional ‘push’ activities – for example, neuroscientists giving public lectures similar to conference presentations, albeit somewhat less technical. There are exceptions. Neural Knitworks, for example, engaged harder-to-reach publics by asking them to ‘natter with neuroscientists’ while they knit neurons (‘Neural Knitworks’ 2015).

What is more, as noted at the OECD workshop by Richard Johnson, CEO of Global Helix LLC, making a case for RRI for neuroscience is hampered by a lack of evidence demonstrating that RRI-style engagement achieves its aims of improving research, innovation and public good outcomes.

Other barriers discussed by OECD workshop participants, and experienced by The Brain Dialogue, include the lack of best-practice guidelines for RRI-type engagement, and lack of involvement and incentive-setting by funding agencies.

Struggles to coordinate efforts to advocate for RRI-approach across multiple-partner organisations

Advocacy for a shift away from push-style engagement is made more difficult because Brain Function CoE neuroscientists work at six different universities, each with their own identity, priorities, attitudes, and policies regarding public engagement. In practice, this means we are working to change practice in organisations in which we have limited influence.

On the positive side, our experience shows that RRI-engagement activities with clearly articulated objectives, that are intellectually stimulating for the scientists and avoid promotion, win enthusiastic converts.

Threats (external) to The Brain Dialogue

Too few RRI practitioners

Previous attempts to implement RRI-style engagement in Australia have been stymied by a lack of RRI practitioners and expertise. For example, a review of the Australian Government National Enabling Technologies Strategy Public Awareness Community Engagement program (NETS-PACE) found that the program failed to consistently produce neutral, non-promotional material, and to engage the publics in open discussion about nanotechnology (Department of Industry 2012). Despite changes in government, and shifts in policy and funding priorities, in 2017 there remains in Australia a lack of RRI expertise. This threatens The Brain Dialogue’s ability to grow, and to successfully advocate for RRI-type engagement across Australian neuroscience.

Scientists’ reluctance to get involved with science-with-society engagement

For The Brain Dialogue, negative or indifferent attitudes towards two-way engagement with the publics is also an external threat, with our observations suggesting that insufficient appetite for RRI-style engagement activities is common amongst Australian neuroscientists – indeed, Australian scientists in general. Two reasons standout: firstly an enduring publish-or-perish reward structure that incentivises scientists to value peer-review literature as the main way to share new knowledge, regardless that it has little traction in the outside world (Paulus et al. 2015). Secondly, scientists worry, quite legitimately, that RRI-type engagement increases the risk of them having to engage in public discourse with people whose views they may find extreme or unconscionable.

We note, however, that although this reluctance is common, it is not universal. Indeed The Brain Dialogue forums have depended on the involvement of neuroscientists who have the skills and appetite to share their knowledge with non-scientists.

Inadequate resources

The misalignment of attitudes at the institutional level limits the resourcing of RRI-style initiatives such as The Brain Dialogue. Although engagement programs are routinely included in big-budget research initiatives in Australia, their budgets may be proposed with little forethought for costs beyond promotional activities. Those developing the budgets may lack expertise in resources needed to run effective RRI-style engagement programs, including the skills needed to support knowledge sharing, deliberation, listening, and responding.

Opportunities (external) for The Brain Dialogue

Growing expectation that science demonstrates its value to society

Fortunately, governments and other funding bodies around the world are increasingly asking for evidence that research is of value to society (ARC 2016; HEFCE 2016). Similarly, governments are pushing for more integration between scientists and industry (DPMC 2015; 2016). RRI programs like The Brain Dialogue are one way to drive and articulate these alignments.

For example, by sharing the Centre’s research, and other advances and issues in neuroscience, through plain-language summaries shared via social media (see Strengths (internal) of The Brain Dialogue section above), The Brain Dialogue may boost research paper Altmetric scores – a non-traditional metric which provides a measure of social impact and influence, and is used by research-intensive universities in Australia and funding agencies like Wellcome.

Meanwhile, the Australian Government is in the process of developing an additional set of performance indicators for university researchers that centre on non-academic impact and industry engagement (DPMC 2016). During this development phase, engagement is defined as ‘interaction between researchers and research end-users (including industry, Government, non-governmental organisations, communities and community organisations), for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge, technologies and methods, and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity’ (ARC 2016). If this definition is retained, it will likely make it easier for programs like The Brain Dialogue to engage neuroscientists in their activities and to acquire adequate resources, addressing two of our current Weaknesses and Threats (see above).

Increasing public appetite for science

An opportunity for The Brain Dialogue is also presented by evolving information and communication technologies that make scientific literature more freely available, and allow scientific data to be inputted from multiple sources and locations. This access has increased public interest in science and made it easier for non-scientists to be involved in science in many different ways, including participation as a subject in scientist-led research, crowd-sourced or ‘citizen’ science, self-experimentation and home labs (Bowser and Shanley 2013; Vayena and Tasioulas 2015). This growing interest in science suggests that public demand could help drive the development of programs similar to that piloted by The Brain Dialogue, helping scale RRI programs across institutions, borders, and disciplines.

Conclusion

Our experience at The Brain Dialogue is that when it comes to engagement between neuroscience and the outside world, the status quo can be challenged and improved upon.

Through the implementation of our RRI prototype, we have demonstrated that, in the case of the development of technologies to electrically modulate brain function, open and early engagement allows neuroscientists to gauge public reaction to their work, and refine their research agendas. This refashioning of the innovation trajectory on a larger scale has the potential to pre-empt the public failing to value – or actively opposing – future innovation.

In this regard, we note that neuroscience is at a critical juncture: progress is rapid and promises to profoundly impact society, while public awareness of, and involvement with, neuroscience is low (Pew Research Center 2016). Now is the time to ramp up RRI engagement to maximise the likelihood that neuroscience and neuroinnovation is in tune with the society it serves.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Professor Gary Egan, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Integrative Brain Function, without whom The Brain Dialogue program would not exist, as well as Centre neuroscientists and professional staff whose insights have sharpened its offerings immensely. The authors would also like to thank Helen Gardiner, communications manager, Melbourne Bioinformatics & EMBL Australia Bioinformatics Resource, University of Melbourne, for her comments on the manuscript draft.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Rachel Nowak runs The Brain Dialogue, an initiative of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Integrative Brain Function. She is also principal at the knowledge brokering consultancy Rachel Nowak and Associates, based in Melbourne, Australia.

Elizabeth Paton is a research associate on two projects at Monash University, with her roles focusing primarily on science communication. She teaches communication, media and creative industries subjects at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels across several higher education institutions and is co-editor of The Creative System in Action: Understanding Cultural Practice and Production, published by Palgrave MacMillan UK in 2016.

ORCID

Rachel Nowak http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3186-236X

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council (CE140100007). The Unintended Consequences project (The Brain Dialogue 2016d) is funded by an Industry Engagement seed grant from Monash University.

Notes

1 The European Commission’s Horizon 2020 program uses the term RRI to include ethics, science education, gender equality, Open Access scientific literature, governance and public engagement. However, historically, and commonly today, RRI describes the engagement practice alone.

2 Globally, there is at least one notable exception, the EU’s NeuroEnhancement: Responsible Research and Innovation or NERRI project (NERRI 2016).

3 The Brain Dialogue ran three free Zap My Brain forums in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne – to our knowledge, the first in the world to include home-users of brain stimulation technology as expert guests. Other expert guests included ethicists, industry representatives, psychiatrists and clinical psychologists, and neuroscientists. Participants discussed issues arising from the rapid development of electrical brain stimulation devices. Other noteworthy aspects of these events were:

• educational design principles ensured a systematic approach with desired learning outcomes identified and articulated (e.g. ‘Following the forum participants will be able to describe a brain stimulation device.’)

• live demonstrations of TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) to give authentic insight into the technology

Forums were advertised via Eventbrite, local events websites, and mailing lists, social media and personal networks. Facebook advertising was instigated for the final forum in the series in Sydney – this forum was more diverse in terms of the number of non-scientists in the audience (70% by a show of hands). Forum discussions were broadcast live via Twitter and Periscope.

There was approximately 560 attendees in total. Engagement between the audience and expert guests was excellent with each forum allowed to run overtime to accommodate discussion. Fifty percent of attendees ranked the events as ‘excellent’ and a further 29% as ‘good’ in post-event surveys (a short five-question online survey sent to attendees via email). A typical comment was ‘hands on demonstration was great’. Many respondents suggested new topics for events.

A short three-question online survey was also sent to expert guests via email following the Sydney forum. The results are discussed in the section Strengths (internal) of The Brain Dialogue above.

One neuroscientist used his experience in the forum to design a work experience project for two school students. They were asked to research home use of brain stimulation devices, and to reach conclusions about whether home use was a good idea. Both concluded it was not. They also designed and built from scratch their own brain stimulation device, demonstrating the availability of the technology, and the need for public discussion.

4 The Brain Dialogue Facebook page provides followers with curated content about new discoveries in brain research from the world’s top journals and news outlets, and the Centre. As of April 2017, it had over 2200 followers (people who receive The Brain Dialogue posts on their Facebook stream). One example of how Facebook extends the reach of academic research is a post about a Cell Reports paper on how brain plasticity is not necessary to explain short-term sensory adaptation. The post reached 907 people, with 262 post clicks, and 142 reactions, comments and shares. Facebook referrals were responsible for over 80% of the 178 views of the plain language summary on The Brain Dialogue website.

As of April 2017, The Brain Dialogue’s Twitter feed had over 550 followers across the globe. A LinkedIn group was launched in 2016. There are 15 members. Membership is by invitation only.

We use a COPE (Content Once, Publish Everywhere) strategy – the same content is pushed out through different social media streams to maximise impact of limited resources.