Science for policy handbook

Why is science policy at a crisis point? Prof Sheila Jasanoff of Harvard University, perhaps the most eminent science policy researcher, calls for a ‘new public reason’ connecting government policy to science. She writes ‘New social movements of the mid-twentieth century have made it clear that state expectations from science and technology no longer mapped neatly and inevitably onto visions that citizens held for themselves’.¹ The legacy of nuclear accidents, pollution, epidemics and the use of technology in wars has led to distrust and cynicism in science by policy makers and the broader community. Others more optimistically ask how scientific knowledge can be extracted from data and shared for better policy acknowledging differences by country – for example, last year’s tome of more than 980 pages on this topic from ANU Press.²

Why is this issue important for librarians? As our role has changed in the past decade, our repositories and collections house the research that is vital for public policy debate and decision-making and our role in communication has become more visible. Our institutional repositories often hold the only copies for research that can be accessed by policy makers. Understanding the nature of development of and influence on science policy provides important insights for all those involved in the scholarly communication ecosystem.

This book, focused on policy making in the European Union, comes from the Joint Research Centre. It describes a range of methodologies and tools for policy making that include working with communities and citizens. The connection between research, policy development activities, impact and evaluation is well described with case studies identifying how knowledge can be used. The chapter that may resonate most with an Australian audience is on knowledge-based crisis and emergency management, where the challenge of harnessing scientific information through crises is highlighted. It begins with an image of a bushfire and emphasises the use of technology to connect and present data in intelligible ways. It is designed for scientists and describes tools and techniques, such as complexity science, foresight and modelling.

The audience in our sector for this book will be those with an interest in the contribution that the knowledge we curate can make to policy. The chapter on an institutional framework for science–policy interaction, particularly ‘lighthouses in a sea of knowledge’, provides some useful insights into the harnessing of knowledge for policy development.

Overall, this is a specialised work which complements the work of authors such as Prof Patrick Dunleavy³ whose focus has been directly on how academics can increase their impact, built on decades of research.

Both Prof Dunleavy’s latest book and Communicating science: a global perspective are openly accessible online. Reading these may assist in understanding the gap that Science for policy handbook may fill. If your focus is on the members of EU there is wisdom to be found in this book.

Notes

1. Sheila Jasanoff (2012) Science and public reason, Abingdon, Oxford, Routledge, 2021, p. 2.

2. Toss Gascoigne, Bernard Schiele, Joan Leach, Michelle Riedlinger, Bruce V. Lewenstein, Luisa Massarani, Peter Brok (eds) (2020) Communicating science: a global perspective, Canberra, ACT, Australian National University Press: https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/communicating-science.

3. Patrick Dunleavy and Jane Tinkler (2020) Maximising the impacts of academic research: how to grow the recognition, influence, practical application and public understanding of science and scholarship, London, Macmillan Education UK: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/104661/.