Science advice to governments and parliaments – a global problem
I spent 4 days earlier this month in a pleasant but unremarkable building in the Roppongi district of Tokyo. What happened within was far from unremarkable, however. Descending on the Japanese capital from all over the globe were delegates to the biennial conference of the International Network for Government Science and Advice, or INGSA for short.
INGSA was created in 2014 by Sir Peter Gluckman, then the Chief Scientific Advisor to the Government of New Zealand. It brings together officials from Governments and international agencies across the world looking at identifying relevant scientific evidence and expertise, and using that to it to inform policymaking. Included in the mix were university participants – both those with academic expertise in the science to policy process, and those, like myself, in the business of evidence brokerage.
Governments have realised for some time that more needs to be done to use science in policymaking, and also that there is much to learn from others internationally. That has been the cornerstone of INGSA, which has worked extensively to share expertise, and in particular to bring knowledge of best practice to lower and middle income countries.
A new feature of this conference compared to its predecessors was a stream of work looking at the supply side of evidence, and mechanisms to promote it. It is of course no use Governments sorting out how they’re going to use evidence if universities and others can’t providing it in a timely and useable fashion. And the rise of university policy institutes such as Public Policy|Southampton is proof both that mechanisms are needed, and that universities are doing something about it. And it’s not just in the UK - I met colleagues from New Zealand, Australia and Denmark who were all exploring the same challenges. In one of the parallel sessions, I gave a talk on the rise of public policy institutes in the UK and the driving forces behind that.
There were some fascinating keynote speakers at the conference. The first was Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, as well as former head of the UN Development Programme. A straight talking politician very clear about the importance of science in decisions she had to make. The next two were policy advisors – Vladimir Šucha, Director General of the EU’s Joint Research Centre, and Rémi Quirion, Chief Scientist of Quebec, both involved in different ways in bringing the evidence into the decision making process. And finally, Eugene Muimura, Minister of Education in Rwanda, gave the perspective from a developing country. The best keynote speakers both challenge what you think you know and inspire you to go out and do better – these certainly did that for me.
Outside of the main 2 day conference programme I attended a fringe workshop on science diplomacy – with some pleasant reminiscing of my time in the UK Foreign Office. Back in 2009, I attended the Royal Society / AAAS meeting which discussed and agreed a taxonomy of science in diplomacy, science for diplomacy, and diplomacy for science. These seem to make perfect sense, at least from the point of view of the scientist, and were taken up widely across the international community at the time. Peter Gluckman however suggested a different taxonomy which makes better sense to the policymaker – science diplomacy for direct national interest, for common interest, and for global interest. It will be interesting to see how this develops and whether – importantly – more countries recognise and support science within their diplomatic activities.
I was also lucky enough to join another workshop on science advice to Parliaments, led by Chris Tyler from UCL. This event explored the differences between science advice to Parliaments and that needed for Governments, and started with the useful reminder that Government has a small number of politicians and a large number of civil servants, whereas Parliament is the opposite. The aim is less to make policy recommendations and more to enhance debate and scrutiny. Technology assessment can also be a helpful role. After hearing examples from different countries, the rest of the workshop involved attendees identifying the key research questions needed to improve advice to Parliaments, and I joined a group focussing on evidence brokers. This is a less developed area of research than science advice to government, and I am fascinated to see how this develops.
All in all, it was four brilliant days spent understanding better the challenges of the science to policy interface, learning from others , and making new contacts. The same community comes together again in 2020 in Montreal – I can’t wait.
G. Costigan
Director at Public Policy| Southampton