Engaging the Public in Complex Science: A workshop sponsored by the Royal Society of New Zealand (12-13 December 2001)

Margaret Kilvington & Will Allen

Contents
Workshop introduction
Participant selection
Workshop discussion
Conclusions

Summary

On the 12-13 of December 2001, the Royal Society of New Zealand in Wellington hosted a workshop on Engaging the public in complex science. The principal aims of the workshop were to draw from the participants' expertise ideas of what new skills, roles, players, and research challenges need to be included in a coordinated approach to engage the public in the generation and use of environmental and bio-technological information. The workshop was successful in bringing together a diverse and interested group of participants who were able to raise new questions about the fundamental processes of carrying out science and medical research and the involvement of the non-science community in that process. These ideas were heard and shared by the funders and policy makers directing research in New Zealand as well as those carrying medical and environmental research into practical applications on-the-ground.

What were raised or confirmed by the meeting were the following general themes, which should form the basis of future dialogue on this topic.

A final conclusion of this workshop is that these four themes and other questions that emerged during the meeting relating to science/research and community interaction define an important part of human-dimensions research in New Zealand.

Workshop introduction

This workshop was prompted by a growing interest among various sectors and agencies in improving the relationship between the communities of science and the wider society of New Zealand (notably, the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology was a co-supporter of the workshop).

Several issues over recent years have led to this rethinking of how society and science interact. Foremost among these in New Zealand has been the highly publicised and polarised debate on genetically modified organisms. This debate had raised awareness of problems caused by lack of connections (and even opportunities for connection) between leaders of research directions and those with moral, ethical, economic, environmental or social concerns regarding the implications of this work. Moreover, the controversy over how to make decisions about what is appropriate technological development, high profile as it is, is symptomatic of a wider challenge of integrating knowledge sources that are public-sector based and science based, to address complex questions for which no single technological or other solution may be found. Such are the common characteristics of many environmental and health issues in New Zealand today.

Against this background, the proposed "problem" to be addressed by the workshop was how best to engage the public in understanding and debating complex science information (remaining open to the potential that even this way of framing the question might be problematic and require rethinking). The workshop organisers approached this question by drawing together participants capable of considering frameworks beyond the traditional use of linear information dissemination by science communicators (the "we know what you need to know -- here it is!" scenario), and beyond the common science and community interrelationships. The principal aims of the workshop were to draw this expertise to a practical level by identifying the new skills, roles, players, and research challenges that need to be included in a coordinated approach to engage the public in the generation and use of environmental and bio-technological information.

Participant selection

Participants at this workshop were specifically identified as being those actively involved in progressive initiatives to improve science and science stakeholder relationships. The emphasis was in identifying people who were promoting two-way rather than one-way communication. The end result was to bring together groups of participants that do not normally work together, from both the health and environment sectors. This was on the basis that between these two groups there are likely to be common experiences in dealing with local and national issues where science knowledge could be controversial, uncertain and only ever part of the solution to the problem in hand. Such participants did not often have the opportunity to share experiences outside their sector. Furthermore, in both the health and environment arenas the challenges faced do not always have clear problem definition and rely on the contributions and interpretations of many stakeholders to effect changes. Consequently both fields share common interests in processes that improve the collaboration of all sectors of society relevant to improving problem situations -- including science.

This meant the workshop included participants involved in research and communication of environmental, medical and social science, and working in central and local government (such as health boards, iwi authorities and regional councils). The broad grouping of participants used in some breakout groups during the workshop were:

Participants who might not have grouped themselves in any of the above categories included those with an academic interest in the interface of science and society and those with a more traditional science communication role. A key observation from the workshop organisers -- before the workshop even began -- was that while there were many who eagerly sought participation in the workshop, those with both the interest in the area and with a degree of influence and experience in the challenge of improving the connection between the generation of science information and the resolution of community real-life issues were simply not great in number.

Workshop discussion

In practical terms, the workshop began with introductions and statements of what different participants perceived to be "the problem" and what they wished to offer to the meeting. Richard Meylan of the Ministry for Research, Science and Technology (MORST) presented his perspective on transitions in science and society interaction. These have seen reduced emphasis on information dissemination, attention to processes of consultation, and, most recently, seeking opportunities for active participation, where dialogue and two-way information exchange results in a research process with greater accountability, responsiveness and relevance. Techniques that have been explored to date have included consensus conferences, deliberative polling, and establishment of a bioethics council.

In working groups throughout the day participants thought collectively through the context of science and community interactions, determined what the current issues are, and designed an ideal scenario of preferred outcomes. In the second part of the workshop issues that needed to be addressed to arrive at these preferred outcomes were further unraveled and responses to these generated.

Taking the very title of the workshop to task one participant began his introductions by asking "is our science necessarily complex?" Does the public need to understand complex science or do scientists need to understand the complex interactions that make up a problem of which theirs is but one contribution? This question moved to the heart of the issues in this area, i.e. the challenge of moving a science communication paradigm from information delivery to interactive problem solving.

Such a shift encompassed many of the subsequent issues and challenges that were raised during the day. These included dealing with risk and uncertainty, managing the development and introduction of new technologies, understanding what makes an ethical issue, bringing different world views together, increasing the interaction between science and other forms of knowledge and in particular historically marginalised knowledge sources from Mâori, and integrating the social and biophysical aspects of sustainability issues.

The participants unraveling of the current state of things showed that, while it was hard to avoid viewing science as an entity in itself, it was clearly one with an identity problem. They noted that science knowledge was only partial, limited through the dominance of a particular cultural worldview and through its own linear model of causation. At the same time they observed that society has expectations of science, asking for the resolution to problems that science alone cannot address, and looking for certainties that science cannot provide. They noted too the disturbing impact of commercialisation on science and the pressure to release products without waiting for a unified vision from society. The consequences of this are clearly influencing the public perception of independence and impacting on trust.

The way forward was seen to be through a blurring of the boundaries between science and society, where the science community reflects the range of cultures and worldviews in wider society and priorities emerge through this community culture. Symbols and steps towards this would be the integration of the sciences and the humanities in research, the use of multidisciplinary teams, and the promotion and increased emphasis on skills of facilitation, collaboration, learning and negotiation in research. It would also be reflected in a frequent, culturally engrained evaluation of action that incorporates wide debates on ethics and commercial aspects of science research.

All these comments are somewhat generalised and as such are equally valid across the range of circumstances where science and society interact. However, as the workshop progressed there was a realisation that science was being used in two principal ways. Firstly to describe a particular method of enquiry, and secondly to describe a group of individuals who are part of the institution of that method of enquiry. At times the critique of science referred to the former -- i.e. when considering the limits of knowledge acquired through this particular framework. At other times the institution of science itself was being questioned -- i.e. the lack of a reward system for encouraging less competitive, more information-sharing ways of undertaking research.

There was also something of a realisation at the completion of the workshop that research was being undertaken at different levels, e.g. to solve some localised or regional issue, or one of interest to a limited sector of society - as opposed to the development of a technology that poses challenges across a broad spectrum of society. Similarly problems range in type from a simple technological fix clearly fitting the problem definition to a multistranded problem with multiple problem perceptions and definitions. This variation in social/geographic boundary and problem type suggests a grid of scenarios for science and society interaction. These varying scenarios have characteristics and draw comments that are specific to this context (see Figure 1 below). However, since this framework was not discovered until after the workshop it would be after-the-fact to sort the differing issues that emerged into the categories below-- although this is certainly worth considering for any future process. In general it could be said that the national or socially broad-spectrum issues drew attention to the need for understanding the evolution of attitudes and ethical stances towards such research and technology -- and for processes to incorporate these in decision making about the application and future of this research. The issues of greatest complexity -- for which science may only be a bit player - call for science to assume new roles, and engage as only one of many stakeholders. This further means understanding how to operate in often highly politicised situations, or situations that require continuous development of knowledge, trial, experimentation and evaluation of core assumptions.

Characteristics of problems Social/geographic boundaries of issues
Local/regional or socially narrow-spectrum issue National or socially broad- spectrum issue
Close fit between technology/science contribution and problem e.g. improved breeding technology for farming stock. e.g. cell phone technology to improve communication.
Complex interactions, multiple dimensions to problem e.g. local pollution issues such as Christchurch estuary outfall. e.g. introduction of genetically modified organisms

Figure 1. Categorising types of science/community interaction through social/geographic boundaries and problem type.

In the second part of the workshop, working groups took away components or emergent central issues to work on. The four key areas identified were:

Some interesting discussion emerged around the topic of how science is and can work within communities - whether this can move from crisis-driven involvement to building the capacity needed within science and the wider community for this to happen. However, the difficulty with the above topics, particularly with those of cultural shift and institutional reform, is that they are clearly beyond the sphere of influence of any one participant or participant group. While they potentially set the context for individual responsibility and action, they suffered in the discussions from being somewhat academic and removed from reality.

The final stage for participants was the determination of issues and solutions pertinent to participant groups - with the idea of at least generating some potentially positive actions for individuals involved. For participatory and social researchers most of these actions took the form of research challenges to better understand the processes that engage people well, that are truly interdisciplinary, that deal with the difficulties in problem solving of reconciling different world views, and that address issues of power and information sharing, uncertainty and complexity. At the same time these participants recognised the constraints that operate upon them, notably the unease between biophysical and social researchers, despite the acknowledgement that most problems are actually both technical and social. In medical science there is now widespread recognition that health is affected by socio-economic factors as much as by biological factors although there may be less recognition of this in the environmental management area.

Leaders of research programmes in health and environmental science listed their responses as a memory-jogging list of questions. In planning programmes they needed to establish the relevance of that research to the problem and the social context within which it operates, determine who are the stakeholders and what modes of communication are appropriate and feasible, and address and evaluate these throughout the programme's evolution and operation. This relies on resources being dedicated for the purpose and a recognition of the role of staff who establish and undertake processes of engagement.

Participants involved in setting science and health research policy noted that one of the principal challenges was to address the "weight" of science and its input into decision-making processes. They noted the need for criteria to support programme planners in identifying the appropriate level of engagement for their work, and to determine who relevant stakeholders are, their roles in using science and information, and the different ways in which it might be possible to interact with these stakeholders. If the institutions of science are to improve in this area there needs to be support for building their capacity, and quality assurance mechanisms for measuring the progress.

The final group of participants were loosely categorised as "social capacity builders". This group was made up largely of people from local/regional government and district health boards. The comments they made centred around "what we have learnt about building our organisations' capacity to engage". They highlighted the importance for organisations to believe they are part of the community and in processes of decision making to constantly check "whose interests are being served?" Change within such institutions requires a willingness to learn, and people who will push the envelope, challenging, championing and using examples of models that have worked.

Conclusions

The workshop was successful in bringing together a diverse and interested group of participants who were able to raise new questions about the fundamental processes of carrying out science and medical research and the involvement of the non-science community in that process. These ideas were heard and shared by the funders and policy makers directing research in New Zealand as well as those carrying medical and environmental research into practical applications on-the-ground.

As noted earlier the principal aims of the workshop were to draw from the participants' expertise ideas of what new skills, roles, players, and research challenges need to be included in a coordinated approach to engage the public in the generation and use of environmental and bio-technological information. While the workshop was certainly structured with this in mind, and individuals undoubtedly took away ideas for themselves, it could not be said that a coherent set of directions emerged. This is a reflection of both the complexity of the issue and the stage of dialogue on this subject - as yet still emergent.

What were raised or confirmed by the meeting were the following general themes, which should form the basis of future dialogue on this topic.

A final conclusion of this workshop is that these four themes and other questions that emerged during the meeting relating to science/research and community interaction define an important part of human-dimensions research in New Zealand.


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Page last updated: Saturday, October 05, 2002

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