40 Key Research Questions on Science and Policy
Overview
The relationship between science and policy is critically important both for the sciences broadly conceived and for policy formulation and good governance, but there are major unresolved issues about how the relationship actually functions. The CSaP Science and Policy Studies Group aims to help set a new research agenda by running a programme to identify key research questions, for example about precisely how science influences policy (and vice versa), and how expertise is best engaged.
We are seeking to include questions about the science-policy relationship as observed and conceptualised, as well as more normative questions about ‘how it ought to be’. The only condition is that questions should be capable, at least in principle, of being addressed through research. The final list of questions will help establish a major research agenda in this increasingly important field.
The process
This process has been developed by Professor William Sutherland and colleagues in conservation biology, and has been used successfully to identify key questions in this field. The process involves:
- A call for questions (March 2011)
- A voting exercise to identify the questions worthy of discussion
- A one-day workshop to agree a final selection (6 - 7 April 2011)
You can read about the one-day workshop here.
The paper
Citation:
Full author list:
Sutherland, W.J., Bellingan, L., Bellingham, J.R., Blackstock, J.J., Bloomfield, R.M., Bravo, M., Cadman, V.M., Cleevely, D.D., Clements, A., Cohen, A.S., Cope, D.R., Daemmrich, A.A., Devecchi, C., Anadon, L.D., Denegri, S., Doubleday, R., Dusic, N.R., Evans, R.J., Feng, W.Y., Godfray, H.C.J., Harris, P., Hartley, S.E., Hester, A.J., Holmes, J., Hughes, A., Hulme, M., Irwin, C., Jennings, R.C., Kass, G.S., Littlejohns, P., Marteau, T.M., McKee, G., Millstone, E.P., Nuttall, W.J., Owens, S., Parker, M.M., Pearson, S., Petts, J., Ploszek, R., Pullin, A.S., Reid, G., Richards, K.S., Robinson, J.G., Shaxson, L., Sierra, L., Smith, B.G., Spiegelhalter, D.J., Stilgoe, J., Stirling, A., Tyler, C.P., Winickoff, D.E. and Zimmern, R.L. (2012) A Collaboratively-Derived Science-Policy Research Agenda. PLoS ONE 7(3): e31824. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0031824
