Dr. Mark Saner

Biography:
Marc Saner is the Executive Director of the Regulatory Governance Initiative at the School of Public Policy and Administration, Carleton University (www.regulatorygovernance.ca) and Principal, Saner Consulting (www.saner.ca). He has more than 15 years of experience carrying out assessments and analytical work in the natural sciences and humanities. For the last decade, his primary interest has been the intersection of governance, ethics and science. Prior to his current consulting work he was the Executive Vice President and Director of Assessments at the Council of Canadian Academies and a Director at the Institute On Governance (an Ottawa-based think tank). He is currently an Adjunct Research Professor at the Departments of Philosophy and Biology at Carleton University

Abstract:
Democratization: Of Science, Risk Management or Ethics?
Marc Saner
The times when lab-coated scientists could sell the public anything from light cigarettes to funding requests for nuclear-powered family cars are in the distant past. For decades, the political trend has been toward increased public engagement in the design, production, and use of science. This poses a fundamental problem: is it not a contradiction in terms to make special knowledge (science) everyone’s business?
I propose to sharpen our discussion by focussing on two projects that are related to the broader goal of rendering science more democratic: (1) The governance of risk management and regulation, and (2) the governance of modern technology. In both cases, a key challenge lies in the navigation of the interface between (a) facts and science and (b) values, ethics and, ultimately policy. I will provide an analysis of how much input to each of the two sides of this interface we can reasonably expect and accommodate from the broad or organized public.