Is there a way we can better communicate in the UK science to the public? Since January, Chris Tyler and Rob Doubleday from the University of Cambridge centre for science and Policy, have tried to answer this question.
Policy making by the government is often down to science advice received through leading researchers in their own field. However, the understanding of science by the public is often muffled as it is well filtered through the hands of many politicians and advisors, losing the elements of basic science findings. Policy needs science, so why is it’s relationship with Science so strained?
Chris Tyler and Rob Doubleday have spent the last few months talking to science policy experts to try and come up with questions and lessons to improve the way science is used to inform the public and translate science properly to explain why certain policies are in place.
The UK today, has an outstanding scientific advice system in place for politicians with science from outside and inside the system. The PM has his own chief scientific advisor and each government department has it’s own chief scientific advisor, their advice comes down from the experts in their discipline for example economics, statistics or social research. Outside information and advice comes from science committees and universities.
Science advice has evolved over the last decade since the BSE outbreak, announced on 21st March 1996. The BSE outbreak was a low point for the government and their ability to handle science and inform the public correctly and safely seemed to flop. This outbreak resulted in confusion through mixed messages and lack of clarity about the disease and how it is spread. However Chris Tyler states that a good crisis should never be wasted, that is that the government should have learned from this one big mistake. This was apparently a lesson learned when the foot and mouth crisis emerged in 2001 where the science and policy makers joined forces to successfully deliver good communication with the public on how to handle the outbreak. Science catastrophe’s such as Bird Flu and the Iceland Volcano have shown that ladder of science advise working better than ever.
I say Policy needs science, but why? Policy making throws up enormous challenges and rationalises problems, science helps politicians better understand the options available at a time of crisis such as disease or national disasters and it’s incredibly important that the government characterises the problems and the way that they are addressed, working with the science minds to solve the problem.
Many people think science advice is just a question of where a million pounds funding will go? However it seems not, as science is central in a number of different policy questions, for example, if you try and think of an area where science is not needed, you may think Social Security, however, this is a department that will very soon rely heavily on scientist’s research into the aging population. Mark Henderson, a journalist and author of the upcoming book ‘the geek manifesto’, interviewed by the Guardian, says that the aging population is an area of problem solving and inputs with solutions to problems in many departments of the government.
Imran Khan from the campaign for science and Engineering says that it is transparency and independence of advisors that is important and good communicators of science to the public in making the right policy, not advisors that are worried about losing their job. Science answers questions, that in turn throws up a new set of questions, and it’s this challenge that drives good science, not agreeing to something to make policy making easier. Science advice should ideally also be about check pointing the politicians in making sure they are accountable so they defend their decision with evidence based research. Although today we have a great science advice system, there are still politicians without science advisors that still bring out policies that aren’t well supported by research where they could have really benefited from science advice. For example the HM treasury department are science advice free, but could do with a scientist to challenge function into the research and development tax credit that is there to give the UK based companies the chance to do more research, a science advisor could test it’s design and make sure companies benefit from the tax fully. The Olympics department, new and organised without a science advisor, but would it benefit from science advice? I predict it wouldn’t look to scientists until they were really needed, for example the ash cloud in Iceland was unexpected and science help was needed immediately. Surely the Olympics department are onto a false start, as if you’re not already set up, you’re not well paced.
Science minister David Willets says he doesn’t believe in complete uniformity in science however says there is a growing camaraderie in spirit where information is pooled and tried through problems and gives the government self confidence by scientific professionals good advice. David seems to think that science departments do no longer feel alone and the challenge is to create a society that supports and believes in an evidence based policy. Today there are a large number of people already working alongside the politicians with science minds and science backgrounds as well as having their own network of scientists. David Willets seems to think that the current coalition is very good at evidence based policy.
It’s not surprising that Science and politics don’t always relate well to each other. The two things are very different. Science is welcome to change, unbiased findings and more challenges when a question is answered. However a good politician should not be seen to change his mind in public, that may represent weakness as a leader. So is this where it goes wrong? When people vote for a political party they vote on their own predictions of how they think that party will do when faced with certain problems, the better the scientific research programmes behind the parties suggests their better handling under pressure with certain problems in the future. This is where science and politics are similar, they both require research programmes however scientists do not expect fast results whereas politicians cannot wait years for research. However scientists understand that politicians are up against these time pressures.
So how can we communicate science better in the UK through politicians? Chris and Rob have looked at their evidence and set up a new research programme that tries to understand how science advice works in practice, carrying out questionnaires on ex chief scientific advisors who have advised over the last couple of decades to get a sense of how the role has changed over time. Chris and Rob have also gathered a group of people, academics, science advisors, practitioners and policy makers, to work out key questions to understand how science advice is given to improve science in politics nationally and internationally. This is the first programme of it‘s kind. The questions asked are conceptual, on how we understand science and how it works, some questions are on the limits of state of the art science and how we understand the role of science in politics. What Chris Tyler and Rob Doubleday aim to do is work science into policy making as the two worlds are currently very different.
