Suchergebnisse

In transdisciplinary fields such as science policy, research agendas do not evolve organically from within disciplines but instead require stakeholders to engage in active co-creation. 'Big questions' exercises fulfill this need but simultaneously introduce new challenges in their subjectivity and potential bias. By applying Q methodology to an exercise in developing an international collaborative research agenda for legislative science advice (LSA), we demonstrate a technique to illustrate stakeholder perspectives. While the LSA international respondents—academics, practitioners, and policymakers—demonstrated no difference in their research priorities across advisory system roles, the analysis by developing and developed nation status revealed both common interests in institutional- and systems-level research and distinct preferences. Stakeholders in developing nations prioritized the design of advisory systems, especially in low- and middle-income countries, while those in developed countries emphasized policymaker evidence use. These differences illustrate unique regional research needs that should be met through an international agenda for LSA.

Background:
Elected members of the US Congress rely on staff, including fellows with scientific and engineering expertise, to find and interpret information for use in policymaking. Factors that impede, or facilitate, the communication of scientific information within the institution thus can play a critical role in legislative capacity, but there is a limited understanding of these dynamics in the hyper-partisan body.
Aims and objectives:
This study presents and tests a four-dimensional model describing how the obstacles to science communication in Congress change depending on whether information is sought for use in support of established policy positions ('strategic use') or to inform decision making ('substantive use').
Methods:
Data were collected between November 2017 and February 2019 through interviews with 58 congressional staff members in personal offices assigned to energy, natural resources, and science issue portfolios, and through surveys with 68 science and engineering fellows who completed their year in Congress between 2015 and 2019.
Findings:
Placing scientists and engineers in Congress as fellows augments staffing and institutional expertise. Yet we find that both staff and fellows experience communication-related impediments in using scientific information. Staff report more challenges in using science to substantively make policy decisions, due not only to lack of time, but also factors such as contacts, access, and information presentation. Fellows report fewer barriers and use science for policy in largely identical ways to staff.
Discussion and conclusion:
These findings support the proposed model and highlight the importance of staff scientific fluency and the decision-making context for science communication in Congress.

The quantity and complexity of scientific and technological information provided to policymakers have been on the rise for decades. Yet little is known about how to provide science advice to legislatures, even though scientific information is widely acknowledged as valuable for decision-making in many policy domains. We asked academics, science advisers, and policymakers from both developed and developing nations to identify, review and refine, and then rank the most pressing research questions on legislative science advice (LSA). Experts generally agree that the state of evidence is poor, especially regarding developing and lower-middle income countries. Many fundamental questions about science advice processes remain unanswered and are of great interest: whether legislative use of scientific evidence improves the implementation and outcome of social programs and policies; under what conditions legislators and staff seek out scientific information or use what is presented to them; and how different communication channels affect informational trust and use. Environment and health are the highest priority policy domains for the field. The context-specific nature of many of the submitted questions—whether to policy issues, institutions, or locations—suggests one of the significant challenges is aggregating generalizable evidence on LSA practices. Understanding these research needs represents a first step in advancing a global agenda for LSA research. ; Additional co-authors: Harris Francis Andoh, Laura dos Santos Boeira, Pieter van Boheemen, Robert Cook-Deegan, Gavin Costigan, Meghnath Dhimal, Martín Hernán Di Marco, Donatus Dube, Abiodun Egbetokun, Jauad El Kharraz, Liliana Estrada Galindo, Mark W. J. Ferguson, José Franco, Zach Graves, Emily Hayter, Alma Cristal Hernández-Mondragón, Abbi D. Hobbs, Kerry L. Holden, Carel IJsselmuiden, Ayodele Samuel Jegede, Snezana B. Krstic, Jean-Marie Mbonyintwali, Sisay Derso Mengesha, Tomas Michalek, Hiroshi Nagano, Michael Nentwich, Ali Nouri, Peter Dithan Ntale, Olusegun M. ...

The quantity and complexity of scientific and technological information provided to policymakers have been on the rise for decades. Yet little is known about how to provide science advice to legislatures, even though scientific information is widely acknowledged as valuable for decision-making in many policy domains. We asked academics, science advisers, and policymakers from both developed and developing nations to identify, review and refine, and then rank the most pressing research questions on legislative science advice (LSA). Experts generally agree that the state of evidence is poor, especially regarding developing and lower-middle income countries. Many fundamental questions about science advice processes remain unanswered and are of great interest: whether legislative use of scientific evidence improves the implementation and outcome of social programs and policies; under what conditions legislators and staff seek out scientific information or use what is presented to them; and how different communication channels affect informational trust and use. Environment and health are the highest priority policy domains for the field. The context-specific nature of many of the submitted questions—whether to policy issues, institutions, or locations—suggests one of the significant challenges is aggregating generalizable evidence on LSA practices. Understanding these research needs represents a first step in advancing a global agenda for LSA research.