Should we create a virtual institute / think-tank / network for Canadian science policy?

Submitted by Jeff Sharom on Tue, 03/11/2009 - 16:00

The goals of the CSPC, as originally envisioned by its founders, included an aspiration to lay the groundwork for a permanent entity that would live on after the conference:

The Canadian Science Policy Conference has 3 primary objectives:
(1) to identify and discuss current Canadian science policy issues;
(2) to create networking opportunities in order to forge stronger links between scientists and policy-makers; and
(3) to lay the foundation for establishing a Canadian “Virtual Institute” for Science Policy Research.

Completely open question: in the wake of CSPC 2009, should we work towards creating a virtual institute / think-tank / network for Canadian science policy? And if so, how should we go about it? What form should it take? Who should be a part of it? How should it be governed? What should be its mandate?

Comments

Why not bring the Science

Why not bring the Science and Policy people together?

Submitted by Erling Rud on Wed, 23/12/2009 - 16:00.

Erling Rud asks: "Why not

Erling Rud asks:   "Why not bring the Science and Policy people together?"

They are "together" so far as paper contacts permit.  We can rephrase the question better, as "How do the Science and Policy people relate to each other?" distinguishing beforehand their different classes, viz.:

1.  Researchers (in laboratories etc.)

2.  Research managers (in charge of laboratories etc.)

3.  Policy technicians (counterparts of #1)

4.  Policy managers (counterparts of #2)

5.  Policy clients, chiefly ministers of departments of government.   In general sense, of course, "clients" include all "stakeholders," i.e. the total population.

These two groups differ in that #5 ultimately governs the policy process top-down because it sets the agenda in policy.  By contrast, in science, at least in theory, the agenda is determined bottom-up, guided the "research frontier" (defined by #1) more than by the preferences of science managers (#2.)

Politicians usually rank the importance of scientific policies by political criteria, i.e. non-scientific criteria (except in the broadest "stakeholder" sense.)   When science policy was fashionable (mainly 1963-78) Canadian governments created large new structures of ## 3 and 4.  In the last 20 years these structures have been mostly abolished, either because of lack of demand for science policy advice (#5) or because the structures did function in their procedural environments as their designers or legislators had expected.

I.e. while the results may appear untidy and disappointing, Canadians now have many decades of practical experience in how these five classes usually interact, whether "together" or not (if only we document or remember this experience.)

Submitted by Donald Phillipson on Sat, 10/01/2009 - 16:00.