Technical problem (science)
5.4 GUIDELINES FOR TAKING POTENTIAL SOCIAL IMPACT INTO ACCOUNT
Any scientific advisory process or system is well advised to involve not only scientists and policymakers but also a wide range of social scientists and, in addition, societal actors (see Section 5.5), to take into account the potential social impact of the advice (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2015). For natural scientists, it is a challenge to translate research results and conclusions into advice that would be useful for policymakers and, at the same time, take possible social impacts into account (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2015). One of the main difficulties is that scientific evidence is almost always accompanied by uncertainty, which leads to different opinions among scientists.
This requires them to provide their advice and expertise with degrees of probability, which is not easily accepted by policymakers. Often, it is considered to be a lack of reliable knowledge and the tendency to ask (too) many different groups of experts for opinions. Diverse opinions of scientists are the natural consequence of scientific methodology and this is not a shortcoming (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2015). For example, data collection depends on how a question is formulated. It is advisable to try to reach a consensus, first within the scientific community (the national scientific councils), and later in communicating with society and policymakers.
In a situation when differences in scientific opinions remain, the reasons and underlying assumptions should be clearly identified and communicated, addressing the limits of science and the essence of uncertainty in scientific research (Kloprogge, van der Sluijs, & Wardekker, 2007). Managing uncertainties is difficult but critical for scientific
opinion (see Sections 5.1 and 5.2). Doubts about empirical data (evidence versus experience) or statistical uncertainty may be expressed in terms of probabilities in those cases where some form of uncertainty quantification is justified; otherwise, qualitative accounts of uncertainty or combinations of qualitative and quantitative uncertainty information will also be appropriate (Risbey & Kandlikar, 2007; van der Sluijs et al., 2005; van der Sluijs et al., 2008; Wardekker, van der Sluijs, Janssen, Kloprogge, & Petersen, 2008). For that reason, some examples of scientific advice have been contested as not conclusive enough (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2015).
Scientific advisers need to explain what aspects of the knowledge are uncertain or contested and why, and present this information in a comprehensible way to policymakers (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2015).
Politicians are used to dealing with uncertainty (when considering, for example, polling information), but when it comes to scientific opinions they often expect that science can provide unambiguous answers and are insufficiently aware of the limits of science (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2015).
Therefore, instead of making comments about policymakers not understanding uncertainty, it is better to explain what knowledge and skills would help policymakers to deal with uncertain information (Sutherland, Spiegelhalter, & Burgman, 2013). In Section 4.4, some strategies to communicate uncertainty to policymakers have been described which should be used in conveying uncertainty to policymaking bodies. At the same time, scientists need to ensure that their expertise/opinion/
advice meets the highest quality standards. As a general rule, a peer review process is required in order to include experts from a wide range of disciplines, including social sciences, humanities and design/communication experts (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2015).
It seems that a major factor which determines the importance or impact of research-based advice is transparency in communicating to policymakers as a means to avoid misunderstanding. There are two ways to reach a final version of an opinion. Often, advisory bodies follow a custom (a rule) not to communicate before the opinion is known to the public and, in the case of differences among experts, minority views are included in the final version (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2015). In this case, experts are free to communicate eventual disagreement over the final version of the report. In the other cases, early communication of a draft opinion might be necessary. This, however, requires special attention paid to transparency, and any advice based on preliminary or incomplete results needs an acknowledgement that any later change in the interpretation of research data and additional collection of evidence are clearly marked as such, otherwise it could lead to mistrust in an advisory body (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2015). In general, it is advisable to provide scientific advice to both the public and decision-makers simultaneously (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2015).
As an example, the report of the Global Science Forum (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2015) gives the procedure of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as a model (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 1998/2013):
❝ ‘The Panel prepares a draft of the report, including all findings of the different expert groups. After the first order draft has been reviewed, authors prepare a second order draft and a first order draft of its Summary for Policymakers. The second order draft of the report and the first draft of the Summary are subject to simultaneous review by governments and experts. Authors then prepare final drafts of the report and Summary. These are distributed to governments who provide written comments on the drafts before meeting in plenary to approve the Summary and accept the report. This dual process has been adopted by a number of scientific advisory bodies at both international and national level’
(Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2015).
The dual report process may help to improve in the communication of scientific advice, including the appropriate formulation and language. It is a challenge to write the report for policymakers and as an open access publication, on the one hand, that satisfies the scientific audience by using scientifically accurate and precise language, and on the other hand, that reaches a more general audience by using an easy-to-understand common language (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2015). The term ‘appropriate language’ is used in the process of achieving such an improvement in scientific reports (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2015). In conclusion, when translating evidence and research findings as part of a policy-relevant expertise process, the importance of transparency, openness and stating uncertainties in scientific conclusions cannot be emphasised enough.
Beyond the domain of environmental and health-related advice, scientific advisory bodies address many important policy issues such as education, security, infrastructure or defence. A major issue in assessing impacts in these domains is the degree to which scientific evidence is available, or can be produced in due time. However, many policy domains require less empirical information about impacts, but rather expertise in the form of prudent judgement or holistic enlightenment. Experts are asked to consult with policymakers about potential solutions rather than providing numerical assessments of likely impacts (Wadhwa, Barnard-Wills, & Wright, 2015). Furthermore, impacts may vary, depending on the perspective and experience of the groups that are affected by policies, including end-users, stakeholders, researchers, policymakers and NGOs (ASSERT — Assessing Security Research: Tools and Methodologies to Measure Social Impact, 2013).