The Commission is keen to ensure that it is informed about, and can thus address in its work,
the issues that concern the public and those with an interest in agricultural biotechnology
research. We feel a proactive approach is required in order to engage the public and some of
those “hard to reach” stakeholders whose views may not be captured through our normal
contacts and the formal consultation processes. As such, we commissioned independent
consultants Opinion Leader Research to run a series of deliberative workshops involving lay
members of the public, scientists, farmers, and field advisory staff who would not usually
have a voice in research decision making. This work is one of five separate modules designed to
feed into the Commission's final report on 'What shapes the research agenda?'
The exercise was a 3-stage consultation, which took place between October 2004 and February
2005. Detailed reports of each stage are availible at the links below:
Stage 1 -
The aim at this stage was to explore participants' spontaneous, unprompted views
on science and research agendas. This involved six separate public groups, plus a group of
farmers, a group of scientists and a group of field advisory staff.
Stage 2 -
Whereas stage one concentrated on capturing spontaneous views, stage two was
designed to provide participants with the necessary information to have more informed
discussions about the key issues surrounding the setting of research agendas. The three
different stakeholder groups were brought together to form one workshop, and the public
groups were brought together to form two further workshops.
Stage 3 -
The public, farmers, scientists and field advisory staff were brought together
for the first time to explore further the key issues that arose in the earlier workshops,
and discuss the Commission's emerging conclusions for the overall workstream.
