Integrating Science And Policy

As progress towards a greater knowledge in sustainability science continues, the question of how better to integrate scientific progress with actual decisions made by practitioners remains paramount. This book aims to help close the gap between science and practice. Based on a two year collaborative project between Harvard and Clark Universities, the book takes as its focus the vulnerability and resilience of people around the world to the effects of environmental change, a mature area of research in which one might expect the gap between science and policy/practice to have been extensively bridged. The book presents analysis of past studies, interviews conducted with the producers and users of scientific knowledge, and case studies performed by leading scholars across a spectrum of international settings and political systems. Crucially, the authors identify new directions and tools for closing the gap between science and policy across a range of situations and societies. The result is an illuminating collection of studies and analyses that suggest to researchers, students, practitioners, and policy-makers alike how best to ensure that high quality environmental research informs good environmental policy and practice. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The editors and authors are grateful to Lu Ann Pacenka, who formatted the text of the book. The editors also wish to express their appreciation to Bill Clark and Nancy Dickson of Harvard University, who commissioned and provided oversight for the preparation of the volume. Both editors and authors wish to express their appreciation to the David and Lucile Packard Foundation for providing funds to support the project. Finally, the editors are grateful for the continuing support of the George Perkins Marsh Institute at Clark University. Published with Science in Society

This open access book bridges the divide between political science and public health, whilst simultaneously embracing the complexities and differences of both. Although public health is inherently political, the tools and insights of political science are often ignored in public health scholarship. Bringing together academics and researchers working at the intersection of both, the book demonstrates how integrating these fields can help reconcile the roles of politics and scientific evidence in policymaking. It also highlights the key conceptual, methodological and substantive implications for bridging this divide, and charts a path forward for a movement towards political science with public health. It will be of interest to academics, researchers and students interested in public health, political science, public policy, and the role of scientific evidence in policymaking.

The explosive growth in data, computational power, and social media creates new opportunities for innovating the processes and solutions of Information and communications technology (ICT) based policy-making and research. To take advantage of these developments in the digital world, new approaches, concepts, instruments and methods are needed to navigate the societal and computational complexity. This requires extensive interdisciplinary knowledge of public administration, policy analyses, information systems, complex systems and computer science. This book provides the foundation for this new interdisciplinary field, in which various traditional disciplines are blending. Both policy makers, executors and those in charge of policy implementations acknowledge that ICT is becoming more important and is changing the policy-making process, resulting in a next generation policy-making based on ICT support. Web 2.0 and even Web 3.0 point to the specific applications of social networks, semantically enriched and linked data, whereas policy-making has also to do with the use of the vast amount of data, predictions and forecasts, and improving the outcomes of policy-making, which is confronted with an increasing complexity and uncertainty of the outcomes. The field of policy-making is changing and driven by developments like open data, computational methods for processing data, opining mining, simulation and visualization of rich data sets, all combined with public engagement, social media and participatory tools.

This publication provides the proceedings of an international workshop, held in South Africa, intended to address how international co-operation in science and technology can further the three inter-related aspects (economic, social and environmental) of the development process.

The "precautionary principle"—the idea that society should guard against potentially harmful activities even if some cause and effect relationships have not been fully established—has often been attacked for being unscientific. However leading scientists studying the issue have begun to make the case that the precautionary principle is in fact science based, and that it creates a need for more rigorous and transparent science in examining complex and uncertain environmental risks.Precaution, Environmental Science, and Preventive Public Policy is the first book to explore the role of science in developing a more precautionary approach to environmental and public health policy. The book brings together leading scientists, legal experts, philosophers, environmental health professionals, and environmentalists to offer a multi-disciplinary perspective on the controversial debate over science and precaution. The book:discusses the critical need for science in promoting sustainabilityoutlines the ethical imperative of a more precautionary science and the philosophical foundations of that new approachconsiders some of the ways in which the current conduct of environmental science works against precautionary policiesexamines how the role and use of science differs across cultures and political systemsprovides the components of an approach to environmental science that more effectively supports precautionary decisionsThe book also offers case studies that consider various types of uncertainty and sets forth a framework for evaluating and addressing uncertainty in decision-making.Contributors include Juan Almendares, Katherine Barrett, Kamaljit Bawa, Finn Bro-Rasmussen, Donald Brown, Theofanis Christoforou, Terry Collins, Barry Commoner, Carl Cranor, Stephen Dovers, David Gee, Elizabeth Guillette, Cato ten Hallers-Tjabbes, James Huff, Matthias Kaiser, Richard Levins, Mary O'Brien, Carolyn Raffensperger, Jerry Ravetz, Vandana Shiva, Boyce Thorne-Miller, Joe Thornton, Reginald Victor, and Alistair Woodward.Precaution, Environmental Science, and Preventive Public Policy presents a broad overview of the role of science in implementing the precautionary principle and makes a compelling case that science should be used not just to study problems but to develop solutions.

At present, several issues at the interface of science and policy hinder integration between science & policy workers within the public service. This document seeks to explore these issues, provides cornerstones & approaches to working toward better integration & common purpose between science and policy, and indicates benefits that will arise from making that transition. The issues considered are: the conflicting science & public service value systems and differences in conceptual models; communication barriers & lack of opportunities for dialogue; misunderstanding surrounding the science & policy process; and difficulties in sustaining team & multidisciplinary work resulting from limitations in science capacity.