I attended the #CSaP13 Annual Conference that took place on the 18th of April 2013. You can see me at 1:02.
The Centre for Science and Policy’s 2013 annual conference, held on 18 April at the Royal Society in London, brought together some of the country’s most eminent professionals working at the intersection of science and policy.
For more videos: http://www.csap.cam.ac.uk/programmes/2013-annual-conference/
How academics can engage with policy: 10 tips for a better conversation
Academics need to look at different ways they can communicate their research to policymakers, says Matthew Goodwin –here’s his advice on not wasting their time, or yours.
UPDATE: Experts and experimental government [5/4/2013, GUARDIAN]
The idea of giving a clever man a desk in Whitehall is outdated, argues Geoff Mulgan in the third of our series on scientific advice. We need to take seriously the evidence about evidence
This booklet aims to help NERC staff and NERC-funded scientists to:
– recognise the relevance of their science to policymakers and engage with science-to-policy activities from the outset;
– Identify opportunities, routes and best practice to inform policy-making, including opportunities to feed into NERC’s corporate science-to-policy activities;
– communicate science in an appropriate and accessible way, to the right policy-makers, showing how it fits their needs.
We have used case studies to illustrate the different approaches described, and drawn out reasons for success, where appropriate, as learning points.
Beautiful booklet by UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) advising how scientists can help shape public policy.
Yesterday a letter was sent to The Telegraph by the Science Is Vital campaign.
This was accompanied by an article in the same newspaper “Spend more on science or fall behind G8” by Stephen Adams.
And another article was written in the Guardian “Science funding: time to reverse the decline” by three founders of the Science Is Vital campaign, Jenny Rohn, Stephen Curry and Richard P Grant.
Finally, see article on the campaign website for data.
Please also see a recent Guardian article “Does the UK need to spend more on basic research?” by Kieron Flanagan
[UPDATE: This essay was published in this blog at a time when Research and Technology has been in the news due to the resignation of the Greek General Secretary of Research and Technology, Professor Achilleas Mitsos, on the 31st of December 2010. As a response, Professor I. Tsoukalas, currently an MEP, who was the General Secretary of Research and Technology between 2004 and2008 and responsible for the Law 3653/2008, produced the following press release (taken from http://www.eppgroup.eu/press/showPRExport.asp?PRExportID=24297):“Με αφορμή την παραίτηση του Γενικού Γραμματέα Έρευνας και Τεχνολογίας του Υπουργείου Παιδείας, Δια Βίου Μάθησης και Θρησκευμάτων, Καθηγητή κ. Αχιλλέα Μητσού, ο Ευρωβουλευτής της ΝΔ, μέλος της Επιτροπής Βιομηχανίας, Έρευνας και Ενέργειας του ΕΚ, Καθηγητής κ. Ιωάννης Α. Τσουκαλάς, δήλωσε τα εξής:«Με θλίψη αλλά χωρίς έκπληξη πληροφορήθηκα τον εξαναγκασμό σε παραίτηση του Γενικού Γραμματέα Έρευνας και Τεχνολογίας, Καθ. κ. Αχιλλέα Μητσού.Είχα στηρίξει πολλές ελπίδες στη μακρά εμπειρία του ως Γενικού Διευθυντή της Γενικής Διεύθυνσης Έρευνας και Τεχνολογίας της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης και ήλπιζα ότι η κυβέρνηση θα τον στήριζε ώστε η μακρά αυτή εμπειρία του να αποδώσει το έργο που η ερευνητική κοινότητα της χώρας έχει μεγάλη ανάγκη. Παραβλέπω την απογοήτευσή μου για την πλήρη παραθεώρηση του έργου της ΝΔ (νόμος 3653/2008, τον οποίο το ΠΑΣΟΚ αρνήθηκε να εφαρμόσει), παρόλο που ο κ. Μητσός σε επανειλημμένες δημόσιες δηλώσεις του υποστήριζε τις ίδιες αρχές διαφάνειας, αξιοκρατίας και αριστείας, όπως και η ΝΔ με τον παραπάνω νόμο.Δυστυχώς ατομικές πολιτικές προσώπων της κυβέρνησης, που υπερβαίνουν κατά πολύ και τη νομιμότητα και τον θεσμικό ρόλο τους (και όπως προκύπτει και από την παραίτηση του κ. Μητσού, ρίχνουν σκιές σχετικά με την αποτελεσματικότητα και τη διαφάνεια του τρόπου διαχείρισης των κοινοτικών κονδυλίων), αποδίδουν στη χώρα έναν τύπο διοίκησης της «αυλής Λουδοβίκου του 14ου».Με καλή πίστη και χωρίς πρόθεση πολιτικής αντιπαράθεσης, κάνω έκκληση στον Πρωθυπουργό, όπως και στην Υπουργό Παιδείας, να επαναφέρει σε τάξη στελέχη της κυβέρνησής του που εκθέτουν ανεπανόρθωτα τη δημοκρατική συγκρότηση της χώρας».
[I recently applied for a job for which I had to produce a report on consumer debt and mental health. Even though I did not get the job, I did spent sometime to look over the issue so I am posting the report here.]
Can you believe there is a South Park for Science, Reason and Critical thinking?!? The blogger who made these amazing strips is Crispian Jago and his blogspot is: http://crispian-jago.blogspot.com/. Skeptic Park is absolutely brilliant as is of course his whole blog!!!!
[Over the last 3 weeks I have been following very closely what was happening before, during and after the recent UK elections but from a scientist’s point of view. I copy-pasted every article I could find into Word documents. In the end, these Word documents were more than 300 pages long. I also read all of them and I have been following the twitter discussions as well. Finally, I wrote the following article for a major Greek newspaper (for those of you who understand Greek and this will not all “sound Greek to you” the weblink for the Το κίνημα “Ψήφος στην επιστήμη” paper is http://www.vimaideon.gr). This is my attempt to translate it. I am saying attempt because the language centre of my brain does not understand anymore which are Greek expressions and which English. I would really appreciate it if any of the people that were actually part of this movement could tell me which points I’ve understood wrongly: a third-party always sees things differently and a lot of times not correctly. I can think of many points that might be wrong or annoy people.]
scipolicyeu 