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AEBC 05/05
Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission (AEBC) Research Agendas workstream:
FIRST
DRAFT:
FINAL REPORT,
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Summary
[to follow]
2. Introduction
·
Where
the AEBC has added value – consultation and engagement exercise
·
Agricultural
Biotechnology only – but recommendations may have wider scope.
·
UK
focus, but recognising global perspective
·
Public
sector focus, but recognising private sector importance
3. Conclusions and recommendations
In spring
of 2004, the AEBC set out to investigate “What Shapes The Research Agenda?” in agricultural biotechnology. Through the
approach described above, we are now in a position to answer this question, to
say where we think the system works well, and to make recommendations in areas
where we think it could be improved.
But, before describing our conclusions, it is important to emphasise that we have used the concept of “The Research Agenda” as a convenient short hand. We do not believe that there is one single research agenda in agricultural biotechnology in the United Kingdom, or indeed in any other area of science. Instead there are multiple agendas, set by a variety of funding bodies that have different perspectives and priorities. This was reflected in our written consultation and in other discussions with stakeholders, where views differed depending on whether comments referred to Research Councils, Government departments or other funding bodies. Clearly, there are links and strong similarities between the agendas of different funding bodies, but every funder of agricultural biotechnology research has a different emphasis. This is an advantage – it ensures a plurality of drivers behind research strategies and therefore encourages a more balanced overall portfolio of research. As we shall describe below, we have concluded that there is some danger of certain drivers becoming over-dominant and we feel that having a diverse array of research agendas militates against this to some extent.
Recommendation 1:
Diverse research agendas mean a plurality of drivers behind research and
therefore encourage a balanced and varied portfolio. This diversity is healthy
and no one agenda or driver should be allowed to dominate.
A second
proviso is that not all the drivers behind research agendas are explicit. Informal
influences have a significant effect on research agendas. These include past
precedent and inertia, current scientific trends, areas of UK expertise, and
lobbying by groups representing a range of commercial and other interests. As
Dr David Heaf pointed out in his response to our written consultation, the Zeitgeist,
or the trends in thoughts and feelings among those setting agendas, is a key
driver. Informal influences on research agendas are inevitable and need to be
acknowledged alongside the more overt drivers. We agree with the Institute of
Food Research that they should not be considered a problem as long as our
recommendations for openness, transparency and accountability in agenda setting
discussed below are adhered to.
Notwithstanding
these two caveats, we believe that the
four key drivers behind research that we have identified in our analysis paper
are valid:
1) Advancing knowledge and technology and maintaining the
science base
2) Wealth creation and international competitiveness
3) Government policy, regulation and legislation
4) Science and society.
Government
policy and regulatory concerns might dominate research on the safety of
agricultural technologies, while research into new agricultural products would
be focused on wealth creation and experiments looking at flowering mechanisms
in plant would be based largely on scientific curiosity. However, we believe
that each of the key drivers affects all agricultural biotechnology research,
and indeed all of agricultural research, to a varying extent.
This brief
list is necessarily a crude summary, and the four drivers are multifaceted,
complex and interrelated. They are described in more detail in our analysis
paper. Nevertheless, the other modules of our workstream – the written
consultation, engagement exercise and case studies – largely confirmed our view
that these are the key drivers. However, they also suggested that some
refinements are needed to the definitions in our analysis paper, and these are
taken into account in the text that follows below and incorporated into the
revised analysis paper published alongside this report.
“RRes hopes to be able to influence the agenda for
scientific research of relevance to agriculture and the environment but, in the
final analysis, the organisation must always demonstrate agility in its
response to the research agenda as set externally by its funders (mainly
government departments and the research councils).”
Rothamsted
Research (RRes) response to written consultation, December 2004
“Our feeling is that … the majority of the
scientific community who are involved in and excited by biotechnology still lie
largely in the ‘curiosity driven’ domain and, in the main, do not prefer to
align their activities with policy issues over and above the development of
fundamental science.”
Scottish
Agricultural College response to written consultation, December 2004
The above
are just two of many, sometimes conflicting views we received on the role of
scientists in setting agendas, an issue which relates largely to the first
driver listed above (advancing knowledge and technology and maintaining the
science base). It is clear that
scientists can to some extent determine the science that they do, as shown by
the existence of responsive mode funding, and the research councils’ emphasis
on this route[1]. We believe
that scientists have most impact in setting agendas by providing the
innovation, in terms of theoretical and technological developments and
methodology, which underlies their discipline. However, during our public and
stakeholder engagement exercise, many of the scientists participating felt very
strongly that their influence was weak and heavily constrained by the narrow
parameters set by strategic priorities and mechanisms such as the Research
Assessment Exercise (in Universities) and the “box-ticking” of the grant
application process. In our analysis paper, we discussed the growing central
scrutiny and control of research agendas. This is demonstrated, for example, by
the proposed Office of Science and Technology (OST) performance management
system for the Research Councils[2],
and by the new SEERAD strategy, which seeks to align the research it funds more
closely to its policy needs, thereby reducing the autonomy of the institutes it
supports[3].
In
retrospect, the terms “bottom-up” and “top-down” that we have used before are
not really appropriate here. It is impossible to distinguish “bottom-up” from
“top-down” influences completely because they feedback on one another. It could
also be said that genuine “bottom-up” influence would be from end-users of the
research including farmers or consumers, rather than scientists (these issues
are covered in the discussion on public and stakeholder engagement below).
Overall, we
conclude that ordinary scientists (that
is those not sitting on funders’ decision-making bodies), still retain a strong
influence on research agendas, but that this influence is constrained within a
strategic focus over which they have declining influence. The breadth of this
constraint varies between the different funders.
There was
strong support in our public and stakeholder engagement exercise for continuing
basic or “blue-skies” research, on two grounds: the intrinsic value of
knowledge about the world provided by scientific discoveries, and the
instrumental value of such knowledge for the good of society, either in the
short or long term. Although some were concerned about the lack of more applied
agricultural research being done, nobody we heard from in our consultation
queried the need for fundamental, basic research.
As
discussed above and in our analysis paper, there is an increasing trend for
research agendas to support Government’s policy and regulatory needs,
particularly in Government-department funded research but also, though to a
lesser extent, Research Council science. These moves are not unwelcome and we
agree with Government on the importance of balanced, evidence-based policy
making. However we feel that the importance of basic research, to underpin more
applied work, and the broad support for this that we have found, must be
highlighted.
Recommendation 2: Support for
high-quality, basic research should be maintained, to generate fundamental
knowledge even if it has no direct and immediately obvious practical value.
Basic research priorities should be protected from short-term pressures such as
policy needs and the drive for wealth creation. [By the same token, the
funding of basic research should be removed from the influence of stakeholders
and the public. We believe that the public and other stakeholders would support
this, but recommend that this belief be tested through engagement. (?)]
Part of
the Advancing Knowledge and Technology
and Maintaining the Science Base driver, as described in our analysis
paper, is the “technology push”, exemplified in 1994 by the subsuming of the
Agricultural and Food Research Council (AFRC) in the creation of the
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), in order to
exploit the biosciences with an increasingly technological focus.
It is
clear that technology has been a major influence on the direction of
agricultural research. In our case study on soil science, we show that advances
in molecular biological and genomic technology have opened up new avenues and
created opportunities for soil science to pursue questions that were previously
largely inaccessible. “Platform” technologies such as genomics can revitalise
research areas, greatly improving scientific quality and the potential to
generate results. Some technologies are also favoured for their wealth creation
potential.
However, some of the respondents to
our written consultation expressed concerns about the emphasis on molecular and
biotechnological techniques, and the associated reductionist perspectives, in
agricultural research. They believe that this technology focus is
disproportionate and does not necessarily result in research of optimum benefit
to society. They feel that there is a need for more holistic, systems-based
research that is directed more towards agricultural methods and processes than
at present. The 2002 BBSRC review of sustainable agricultural research[4]
recognised the historical focus on molecular and cellular level studies and the
“relative weakness in integrative and systems studies of relevance to
sustainable agriculture at the whole organism, field, farm or catchment level.”
It recommended a review of the resources needed for the sustainable agriculture
programme, with a view to providing the kind of generic platform facilities
available for structural biology and genomics. We sympathise with these views.
Recommendation 3: It is
important to ensure that technologies do not become ends in themselves, but are
targeted towards agreed objectives of benefit to society and sustainable
agriculture. We endorse the recommendation of the BBSRC sustainable agriculture
review group for a review of the capacity for more systems-based, longer-term
sustainable agriculture studies.
[Note:
awaiting information from BBSRC on how these recommendations are being
implemented]
Our
analysis paper concluded that wealth creation is a key driver behind agendas,
in agricultural biotechnology as in other areas of research, and suggested that
its importance was increasing. Responses to our written consultation supported
this conclusion. Evidence from all parts of our workstream suggests that wealth
creation is in danger of becoming over-dominant. The definition of wealth
creation, in theory and in practice, needs to be examined closely, and
alternatives must be considered.
Economic
returns from research started to receive increasing emphasis in the budget
freezes of the 1980s, but it rose to prominence with the 1993 White Paper Realising Our Potential, which led on the concept of
harnessing the UK’s strength in science and engineering to the creation of
wealth. This was to be achieved by “closer and more systematic contact with
those responsible for industrial and commercial decisions”[5].
Wealth creation continues to be a key theme in the Science and Innovation
Investment Framework 2004-2014, the first paragraph of which says that
“harnessing innovation in Britain is key to improving the country’s future wealth
creation prospects” and defines the Government’s ambition “for the UK to be a
key knowledge hub in the global economy”.
Our
engagement exercise revealed confusion among both public and stakeholder
participants about the context and purpose of wealth creation as a driver
behind research. [Note: revise once report of exercise received from OLR]. In theory, the concept of wealth creation could
be interpreted very broadly, to include non-material and non-financial values. Indeed one of our
consultation respondents suggested that a broad definition like this should be
adopted[6].
However, several consultation respondents expressed concern about the growing
influence of industrial and commercial interests. The examination of the
composition of a selection of research committees in our analysis paper
indicates a prevalence of, though certainly not complete domination by, large
commercial interests[7].
This suggests that wealth creation may tend in practice to be narrowly defined
for the benefit of particular business sectors, rather than the general
stimulation of economic activity.
Some
interpret the wealth creation driver more generally as a focus on market
considerations and cooperation with the private sector[8].
As well as stimulating economic activity, this focus should generate more
practical applications from research. The creation of wealth from the results of
scientific research is beneficial, and wealth creation should be one of the
drivers behind research. It is important to ensure that scientists are in a
position to spot potential commercial applications and to exploit them when
they are found. However, we believe that wealth creation should apply to the
full range of economic activities, including smaller and non-conventional farm and food, as well as large
agri-food and technology companies. This has implications for the involvement of stakeholders
in agenda setting, as discussed below.
The
concept of “quality of life” was an important feature of Realising Our Potential, albeit clearly a secondary one to wealth
creation. The wider benefits of research, for which public expenditure on
science could be justified, were “above all the generation of national
prosperity and the improvement in the quality of life”. Though not explicitly
defined, quality of life was included in the new mission statements for science
and technology in Government departments and the Research Councils in the 1993
White Paper. Tellingly however, in last year’s Science and Innovation Investment Framework, “quality of life”
receives only three brief and passing mentions. It does not appear to have been
replaced by an alternative concept. Several respondents in our consultation
suggested that “sustainability” or “the public good” should drive agricultural
research more explicitly, but neither of these appear significantly in the
science and innovation framework.
Wealth
clearly contributes to quality of life and the public good, but wealth creation
does not substitute adequately for these aims. Not all research that
contributes to the public good, or to peoples’ quality of life, will generate
wealth by the narrow definition discussed above. Indeed the three-pillars of
sustainability include environmental protection and social progress in addition
to economic advancement.
Of course,
a significant amount of research done today generates public goods without
creating wealth directly. Examples include food safety research and studies of
the effects of climate change or soil pollution. Furthermore, such research
with no immediate wealth creating value may have help to tackle future,
unanticipated problems with serious cost implications, such as outbreaks of an
infectious animal disease.
“Although we agree that policy relevance is increasingly
perceived as a strategic driver of research and development in agricultural
research, there is little evidence that agendas have yet responded to this
driver in the context of agricultural sustainability and impacts of agriculture
on the environment.”
British Statutory Conservation Agencies response to
written consultation, December 2004
But, as
noted in our analysis paper and supported by consultation responses, public
good and the old quality of life driver seem to have become subsumed in today’s
high-level science policy documents under the banner of supporting Government
policy and regulation. Like wealth creation, policy support does not encompass
all public goods; not all research that increases quality of life will
contribute to Government policy or regulation. Furthermore, our public and
stakeholder engagement exercise showed clearly that participants do not equate
wealth generation or policy support with public good or quality of life goals.
[Note: revise once report of exercise received from OLR]
We do not doubt that most scientists consider the generation of public good and improvement of quality of life to be key drivers for their work. But this should be made a more explicit part of agricultural biotechnology research agendas. However, public good is a concept that is very open to interpretation – do we mean good for the agriculture industry, good for the environment or good for the developing world?
Rather
than a return to the terminology of public good and quality of life, we feel
that the concept of sustainability best represents these aims. We acknowledge
that sustainability is as open to different interpretations as public good, but
it at least has some well-accepted definitions attached to it. Sustainable
agriculture research is already part of the agendas of most of the funders we
have looked at, but sustainability is not a key driver. Given that Government
is explicitly committed to sustainable development, and specifically to
sustainable agriculture, it is clearly wrong that the concept of sustainability
does not share the high-level strategic importance given to wealth creation and
Government policy support. In this respect, we agree with the recommendation of
the Food Ethics Council in their recent report on food and farming research[9].
Recommendation 4: There is a
danger of the drive for wealth creation becoming over-dominant. Sustainability
should be given equal weight to wealth creation and Government policy support
as an overarching, strategic driver behind agricultural biotechnology research.
The concept of sustainability encompasses the need for more explicit reference
to the generation of public goods and the improvement of quality of life
through research.
“The sectoral approach to farming by Government and
the industry itself has led to a rather fragmented approach to R&D
strategy.”
FARM response to
written consultation, December 2004
“…We welcome the cross cutting initiatives from
Research Councils and Government departments. Greater co-ordination in
developing strategy will have a beneficial effect on delivery too.”
Applied Research
Forum response to written consultation, December 2004
A number
of the responses to our written consultation highlighted the need for
co-ordination between funders of agricultural research in agenda setting,
including international collaboration. Our soil science case study demonstrates
that it can sometimes be difficult to obtain funding in disciplines that do not
fall neatly within the portfolio of a single Research Council. The BBSRC’s 2002
review of sustainable agriculture research recommended co-ordination between
BBSRC, NERC, ESRC, Defra, SEERAD in sustainable agriculture research, including
establishing a joint sustainable agriculture research committee and concerted
funding actions.
[Note:
awaiting information from BBSRC on how these recommendation are being
implemented].
Our
information gathering suggests that gaps and overlaps do exist between
different research funders, and we have considered whether we might ourselves
recommend the establishment of a co-ordination group for sustainable
agriculture research, along similar lines to the BBSRC review’s recommendation.
In the end, we have decided against this, first because we are loath to
recommend establishing another committee unless we feel it is absolutely
necessary, but primarily because of our conviction that maintaining a plurality
of drivers, and avoiding domination by any one agenda, is essential (see
Recommendation 1).
Nevertheless, our model of a
plurality of drivers will only work if there is good coordination between
funding organisations and unnecessary barriers to cooperation are removed. We welcome moves towards increased
co-operation and multidisciplinarity, such as the Environmental Research Funders
Forum[10]
and the joint Rural Economy and Land Use programme[11].
We also welcome greater flexibility in funding, for example to allow joint
support of grants by BBSRC and NERC and applications for BBSRC grants by staff
in NERC institutes. We support the aim of the Defra Sustainable Farming and
Food Research Priorities Group, in addition to identifying Defra’s research
agenda to underpin its sustainable farming strategy, to create a more cohesive
farming and food research area across the range of different funders.
As
described above, our examination of agricultural biotechnology research agendas
has been explicitly limited to public sector research, simply in order to
reduce the work to a manageable scope. But we have not ignored the private
sector, particularly in its research links with the public sector and as an
end-user of publicly funded research. We
encourage agricultural biotechnology and other agri-food companies, as well as
the agricultural levy bodies, to look closely at our recommendations and,
bearing in mind their corporate responsibility, consider carefully whether they
could apply them to their own research. We suggest that the area of public engagement (see below)
should be given particular consideration, and point private sector
organisations to the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures
& Commerce’s (RSA’s) Forum for
Technology, Citizens and the Market, and in particular its web-based Guidance
for Science-Based Business on Engaging the Public[12].
An
important issue that emerged from our initial information gathering and
analysis was the suggestion that Government departments’ withdrawal from
near-market research in the 1990s has led to gaps in applied research. We asked
in our consultation whether this was true, and several respondents felt that it
was. Others felt out that a distinction should be made between research that
promises instant commercialisation, and can therefore reasonably be left to the
private sector, and research that is close to practical application, but does
not show significant commercial potential. The latter category would include
research into agricultural methodology and processes, as opposed to product
development.
The scientist participants in our engagement exercise told us that gaps in the public sector provision of applied or near-market research were due to the fact that they had little incentive to pursue this kind of research. Scientific careers were built on publication in peer-reviewed journals, the most prestigious of which favour basic over applied research. Those scientists working in Universities cited the constraints of the Research Assessment Exercise, success in which is based on peer-reviewed publications rather than the generation of any practical applications, or even contribution to sustainability, wealth creation or policy goals.
Our plant
breeding case study illustrates some of the complexities of public sector
support for applied research. There was unanimous agreement among the public
and private sector plant scientists and breeders we spoke to that the link
between fundamental plant and crop science, and practical plant breeding, was
weak (and had been weakened by privatisation of crop breeding). The plant
breeding industry did not object to basic, fundamental plant science being
done, but did not consider it useful to plant breeding. They felt that if money
were to be earmarked for applied research into plant breeding, as recommended
by the 2004 review of BBSRC crop-science[13],
it was essential that the output filtered into the private sector, as this was
the only route by which new crop varieties could be generated. They were also adamant that new models of
publicly funded plant breeding must not reinvent the pre-1990s situation, whereby
the public sector took crop varieties all the way to market and was therefore
in competition with the industry.
We
sympathise with these concerns, but they highlight a problem. Sustainable
agriculture needs products and processes that benefit the environment. However,
there will be no market for these unless farmers buy them. In the case of crop
breeding, disease, pest or drought resistant varieties, are called for, as well
as new varieties of the so-called minority crops that are not bred by the private
sector today. But the market continues to be dominated by
high-input/high-output varieties or a few large commodity crops, with improved
yield and quality. Market issues are beyond the scope of this work and of the
AEBC. However, if this situation is to change, Government needs to influence
the market to incentivise farmers to buy the crop varieties that allow
lower-input farming methods.
Recommendation 5: Applied
research should receive public funding where it contributes to the
sustainability of farming. This might include some research with commercial
applications. In such cases, priorities should be determined in consultation
with appropriate commercial stakeholders to ensure the market relevance of the
research. The appropriate distance from market for the publicly funded research
must be carefully determined.
The AEBC’s
information gathering and analysis of the agenda setting processes of public
research funders showed that decision-making processes were not fully transparent.
Consultation responses on this subject agreed that public sector research
needed to be more open. Several respondents pointed to conflict between the
desire for openness and the emphasis on public-private collaboration and
intellectual property protection, which tended to reduce the accessibility of
information.
In line
with the legal requirements for public sector openness, we found that
Government departments and Research Councils had commitments to make
information publicly accessible, but this applied mostly to individual research
projects rather than strategic decisions. However, there are examples of good
practice. Defra’s Science Advisory Committee held an open meeting in January
2005, attracting around 60 people, and aims to hold at least one of its four
annual meetings in public[14].
It also makes meeting minutes and the majority of its papers publicly
available. NERC also holds one open council meeting a year. But such examples are still exceptional: we believe
they should be normal practice, and that public funders of agricultural
biotechnology research need to be more open, transparent and accountable.
While
openness is required across the whole spectrum of research funders’ activities,
we feel that it is in the thematic or strategic level decisions where openness
is most important. Participants in our engagement exercise agreed that
transparency was important, both about the funding decisions that are made and
about the mechanisms by which they are reached. They also felt that decisions should
be accountable, so that the reasons for taking them were justified.
We feel that funders should
be able to explain on what grounds priorities have been chosen, as well as why
other areas are not favoured. This would be helped by holding meetings of decision-making committees
in public, and making their documentation freely available.
The AEBC
has met in public and published all of its papers since its inception in 2000.
We have not found that this has adversely affected our business and it has been
of great benefit in our relations with the public and stakeholders. There is a
cost associated with transparency, and this should be recognised and additional
funds made available where necessary. We also recognise that there will always
be rare cases where papers will not be suitable for publication, particularly
at the level of individual grant-making decisions and in other instances where
there are data protection concerns. In such cases, the reason for
non-publication should be made clear.
Recommendation 6: Meetings of
Research Council and Government department research decision-making committees
should be held in public as a matter of course. Documents should be made freely
available, or the reasons for not making them available should be clearly explained.
At the more downstream level of individual grants, we note the requirement made by some funders for a short summary in lay language to be attached to each grant. We recommend that this requirement be made universal to all publicly funded research projects, and that these summaries should be required to include an assessment on how the work will contribute to the public good and the sustainability of agriculture (in the case of blue skies research this contribution can of course be indirect). Once grants have been awarded, we recommend that the relevant grant-making committee publish an explanation of why each was funded, in a similarly short, comprehensible format. Finally, we recommend that funders should ensure that these summaries are made publicly available in a prominent and easily accessible way.
Recommendation 7: For all
publicly funded research projects, a short summary of the project, including an
explanation of why it has been funded and how it will contribute to sustainable
development, should be written. This should be comprehensible and informative
to a non-specialist and should be made freely available to the public.
“What is primarily required to reach the public, in
my view, is that academics be willing to recognise and verbally formulate the
ethical drivers of their research, open these drivers up to debate, and in
doing so exercise a more holistic perspective on research agendas than they are
accustomed to…. This should lead to an understanding of the societal relevance
and meaning of research agendas that speaks much more directly to the public’s
interest than is presently the case, and should be perceived as intrinsically
more transparent and honest.”
Scottish Agricultural College response to written consultation,
December 2004
The
Government supports “action to achieve greater public confidence and improved
engagement in science and technology”[15].
Its Science and Innovation Investment Framework commits to a doubling of OST’s
Science and Society expenditure, and an initiative to build capacity and
identify and propagate good practice in public engagement. The aim is to enable
“public fora where the ethical, health, safety and environmental impact of new
science and technologies can be debated.”[16]
Our analysis
paper shows that funders of agricultural biotechnology research generally
aspire to involving the public in decision-making about science and technology.
But we found that genuine, public engagement in the setting of research agendas
remains minimal. Many activities billed as public engagement are actually
closer to information dissemination and education – activities that are
important and to be welcomed, but which are not the two-way process implied by
engagement. Most of our consultation respondents agreed that improvements were
needed to current methods of public engagement.
We commend moves by public
research funders and wider Government towards public engagement and dialogue in
science, but we believe that there is still some way to go to put aspirations
into practice.
Why do we
believe that public engagement is important? Three principle motivations are
often cited: normative, instrumental and substantive. These have been discussed
in detail elsewhere[17]
but it is helpful to summarise them here. The normative justification
holds that public engagement should be done because it is the right thing to do
in a democratic society. It allows the public to feel some ownership and
partnership with the science and with its results. An instrumental
justification says that public engagement is a means to an end, such as
improving trust in science and technology or in Government’s decision making.
Finally, engagement can be justified on substantive grounds, the belief
that it improves the quality of decision-making. In our view, all three
motivations are sound, but we agree with Demos, in their pamphlet See
Through Science, that a substantive approach is necessary to
genuinely involve the public[18].
Our public
and stakeholder engagement exercise found a strong enthusiasm for public
involvement in decision-making. Participants believed that the public provided
detached “common sense” and an important counterbalance to the views of
interested parties. They felt that the public should influence, but not make, decisions.
[Note: revise once report of exercise received from OLR]
“There is compelling evidence that involving people who are
not professional stakeholders can make for better decisions… There are plenty
of tried and tested methods of public dialogue on
science and technology. The biggest challenge is to ensure decision-makers are
able to take that input seriously.”
Food Ethics Council response to written
consultation, December 2004
“At the more fundamental scientific level, the views of lay
people are more difficult to incorporate. Perhaps more (social) research is needed on
how such views can be included in a meaningful way.”
Scottish Executive Environment and
Rural Affairs Department response to written consultation, December 2004
Research
funders and others involved in science often point to the practical challenges
of engaging the public in a genuine and meaningful way, and several of the
responses to our consultation suggested that more social research was needed to
develop techniques. We agree that effective public engagement is challenging.
Some of us are sceptical about existing methods, while others feel that there
are a number of legitimate methods to choose from. We do not intend to make
recommendations on which particular methods research funders should employ, as
we feel that this is a decision best made on a case-by-case basis. However, we
do feel that it is crucial to recognise that public engagement is an activity
that requires specific training and expertise. The validity of its methods can
be assessed and subjected to peer review. In short, public engagement is a professional activity.
The means by which more direct input should be
accomplished would require some form of deliberative process between citizens –
and for logistical reasons this must mean a smaller number than the population
at large. Mechanisms such as deliberative mapping, consensus conferences,
citizen’s juries exist to allow some kind of feedback and evaluation. However
there need to be some clear conditions and limitations on this approach:
a)
There’s
no point doing it unless the existing decision-makers are prepared to change
their actions to accommodate markedly different perspectives. A failure to do
this would amount to going around stirring up cynicism.
b)
Public
involvement is a supplement to decision making not a substitute for it. The
decision remains that of the decision-maker, but public input should (see
above) require a much higher level of justification for decisions taken.
c)
These
mechanisms would go much further than a standard ‘consultation’ and would
require organisations to actively seek out opinion rather than sit back and
expect to receive it.
d)
To
be meaningful the starting point of a public involvement mechanism needs to be
that they are able to shape the questions being asked, not to be given
questions that e.g. presupposes that GM food has an important role to play in
future food supply.
Greenpeace response to written consultation,
December 2004
While we
do not advocate any particular methods, we do feel that certain principles can
be applied to any public engagement exercise. [Note: refer here to OST
guidelines on public engagement, due to be published shortly]. We agree with the four conditions suggested above by
Greenpeace in their response to our consultation. In particular, we agree that public
engagement should only be undertaken if there is a willingness to accept and
adapt to its outcomes in some way. Research funders should say in advance how
they plan to use the results of engagement, and should document clearly how the
results have influenced them. It is also clear that standard consultation
documents and similar processes cannot be labelled as public engagement simply
by making them open to anyone. Genuine engagement requires a more active
approach, and also benefits from an opportunity for participants to frame the
issues being discussed, rather than simply responding to preconceived
questions. It can be a long and iterative process.
One point
that emerged strongly from our consultation was a fear that public engagement
should be organised to avoid domination by specific groups or “single-issue”
campaigners. We agree. Participants in
public engagement exercises should be selected so as to avoid domination by
self-selecting groups from any sector, from environmental organisations to
farming unions and industry associations.
“In order to
engage upstream, we believe that early identification of issues is important
and we are evolving our consultation processes to help the scientific community
to be more reflective about potential applications, social impact and misuse of
research. …However, long-term some of the most important implications may come
from the growing awareness amongst the research community of the need to
account credibly for public money spent on research and of the benefits that
can arise from constructive engaging with the public on issues associated with
the research, and the increased mutual understanding between research funders.”
BBSRC response to written consultation, December
2004
The
question of at what level of decision-making public engagement is most
appropriate is an important one. The Government has recently thrown its backing
behind “upstream” engagement, that is early on in the scientific and
technological development process[19]. Participants in the AEBC’s engagement
exercise were most in favour of upstream engagement, including on very
high-level strategic issues to do with where we want science and technology to
take us in the future. However, most also felt that engagement was necessary at
more downstream levels. See Annex 1 for the AEBC’s interpretation of the
spectrum of upstream to downstream engagement in the context of research agenda
setting.
[note:
expand on this once report of exercise received from OLR].
We believe that the case for
engagement is strongest at the upstream or strategic level. This is because the strategic
decisions taken early on impact at all later levels, down to awarding
individual grants and the exploitation of new technologies. We also feel that
public input is most obviously valid on the issues of what society wants from
science and what directions it should go in, and this is the level where lack
of scientific expertise is least problematic.
However, upstream engagement
should not preclude involving citizens at later stages, and we see a strong
case for more downstream engagement. Public involvement is most contentious at the level of
grant-awarding committees, because of concerns about possible detrimental
effects on science quality and the over-riding importance of scientific
excellence. The opinions of AEBC members differ here and, on balance, we
believe that research is needed on the
potential for public engagement in grant-making decisions before a considered
view can be taken.
Recommendation 8: All public
sector research funders and advisory groups should use validated methods of
public engagement or dialogue to supplement their high-level, strategic
decision-making. Funders should say in advance how they plan to use the results
of engagement, and should document clearly how the results have influenced
them. The approaches used should preclude undue domination by self-selecting
groups. Engagement should not be
passive, but should actively seek out opinion and should also allow
participants to frame the issues being discussed.
Our public
and stakeholder engagement exercise suggested that having a broad range of
interests represented on decision making bodies would help to give people
confidence that science reflects the views of society. Broad representation is
perhaps a more realistic alternative to having truly independent
decision-making. We believe that the more
diverse the input into research agenda setting, the more solid the outcome will
be. As well as engaging the public, a full range of stakeholders should be
involved.
However,
as discussed above, our
examination of the composition of research decision-making committees in Research Councils and Government
Departments indicates
a prevalence of large commercial interests[20].
End-user
representation includes the private sector (mainly food industry,
pharmaceutical and high-tech sectors, with a significant presence from the
farming sector and agricultural industries) and, to a lesser extent charities
and NGOs. Some responses to our consultation expressed concern about the poor
range of stakeholder representation, particularly on Research Councils’
committees, though there was a feeling that Government departments were improving
in this area. Examples of good practice include Defra’s Sustainable Farming and
Food Research Priorities Group and its Science Advisory Council, as well as the
planned establishment of a similar Strategic Advisory Panel and an Independent
Expert Advisory Board respectively for the Scottish Executive Environment and
Rural Affairs Department’s and Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture and
Rural Development’s research programmes.
We agree
that stakeholder and end-user involvement in decision-making is not as broad as
it should be. For example, the needs of non-conventional, lower-input farming
systems are under-represented on decision-making bodies. However, this extends
beyond agricultural research to the very highest level of scientific decision-making,
including the Council for Science and Technology[21],
and the industry-led Science Forum announced by the Chancellor in his
pre-budget report of December 2004[22].
Because these committees are as far
“upstream” as UK research agendas get, we also believe the responsibility for
public engagement must extend to these bodies.
Recommendation 9: From the
highest-level scientific committees to Research Council Strategy Boards and
Government Departments’ advisory panels, there is a need to enlarge membership to
include those outside academia and industry.
[Note:
revise this section once report of exercise received from OLR]
The model
of public engagement that is favoured by science-policy makers today has replaced
the previous ‘deficit’ model, which held that increasing the public
understanding of science would reduce public mistrust of science. It is now
recognised that simply informing people of scientific facts does not work.
However,
this does not mean that efforts to improve the communication of science to
non-scientists, and its understanding, should be neglected. Public participants
in our engagement exercise recognised that if they were to be engaged in
research agenda setting, they would benefit from being better informed. In
addition, several participants told us how much they had enjoyed the
opportunity to participate in our engagement exercise and think about how
science is governed. Although there was
no time to explore it in depth, an idea began to emerge about a new type of
citizen’s duty, perhaps analogous to jury service, which was to be articulate
and sufficiently informed to be able to participate in public engagement in
science. We believe that this is a creative suggestion, which is well worth
further exploration.
Recommendation 10: The Office
of Science and Technology should explore the potential for promoting public
involvement in science and technology as an exercise in citizenship.
Public
participants also returned again and again in discussion to the portrayal of
science in the media, particularly on television, usually the primary source of
scientific information. The trustworthiness of information is a key issue here.
There was recognition that media coverage can sensationalise science stories
and should not always be taken at face value. There was also a mistrust of the
interpretation put on scientific information by Government. Participants
expressed a keen thirst for more digestible and trustworthy scientific
information. They suggested a number of possible routes, such as monthly
science news programmes and the use of trusted scientific TV personalities.
However, there was also a pragmatic recognition that public interest in science
was, and would continue to be, limited.
Scientist participants
acknowledged that scientists were not generally good communicators expect
within their own peer group. In explanation, they pointed again to the
scientific career structure, particularly the Research Assessment Exercise, and
the lack of incentive to communicate with non-scientists.
Recommendation 11: The Office
of Science and Technology should commission an independent review of
Government’s presentation of science and technology matters. It should develop a program of work bringing
together the media, public and other sectors of society to reflect on the
communication of trustworthy scientific information.
Upstream Get participants to think about...