Scientific advice has never been in greater demand; nor has it been more contested. From climate change to cyber-security, poverty to pandemics, food technologies to fracking, the questions being asked of scientists, engineers and other experts by policymakers, the media and the wider public continue to multiply. At the same time, the authority and legitimacy of experts is under increasing scrutiny, particularly in areas that often spark intense debate, such as climate change, energy choices and genetically modified crops.
The Auckland conference on science advice to governments comes at an important time. Across many countries and international institutions, the arrangements and methods for scientific advice and evidence-informed policymaking are being actively debated, and in some cases, new structures are being established. In recent years, New Zealand and the European Commission are among those to have appointed their first chief scientific advisors; at an international level, fresh expert assessments are underway, such as IPBES (the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services); and new scientific advisory committees have been established, for example within the United Nations system.
Such developments reinforce the importance of sharing insights and best practices across different advisory systems. It is to this end that the Auckland conference will bring together participants from over forty-five countries - making it one of the largest ever gatherings of scientific advisers, practitioners, and policymakers.
Participants at the Auckland meeting represent a broad spectrum of advisory systems, but what common lessons can we draw about how to strengthen scientific advice?
1. Diverse models reflect different political cultures
Across national governments and international bodies, there are many different structures and institutions for scientific advice. These reflect distinctive cultures and traditions of decision-making; what Harvard scholar Sheila Jasanoff calls the 'civic epistemology' through which expert claims are constructed or challenged in any given society. But within this diversity, four structures stand out as most commonly used, often in combination, across particular systems:
None of these structures is perfect, and governments typically rely on two or more of them in combination to create a broad ecosystem of expertise around policy processes. In a country like the UK, there is a clear hierarchy, with the government chief scientific advisor as the most senior figure. In the US, the system is more decentralized, with multiple points of entry and less attempt at central coordination.
Despite the diversity that we see, common challenges persist across all systems: how to protect the independence of advice while ensuring that it is listened to; how to develop a trusted relationship with policymakers, while maintaining transparency and accountability in the eyes of the public and the science community alike; and how to undertake appropriate quality assurance. These and other shared challenges will be discussed in depth at the Auckland meeting.
2. Advisers need to respond to the demands and rhythms of the policy process
Debates about scientific advice often focus on the 'supply-side' of the science-policy interface. But the 'demand-side' is equally important: an effective advisor needs a sophisticated understanding of how policymaking processes work, and the pressures and constraints under which ministers, civil servants and decision makers operate.
Policy challenges arise across different time horizons, requiring very different responses. Modes of scientific advice that are most useful in emergency situations will rarely be the same as those required for long-term foresight or horizon scanning. Over the past decade, advisory bodies have had to navigate a number of crises with scientific dimensions. Examples include SARS, bird flu, the Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami, the Christchurch earthquake, hurricanes, flooding and the volcanic ash cloud over Europe. As a result, countries such as Japan, New Zealand and the UK now have improved protocols for scientific advice in emergencies.
Some structures, such as national academies, are better suited to providing formal advice against a longer time horizon, by convening expert panels and producing detailed reports. Others, such as chief scientific advisors, may find it easier to provide rapid, informal advice in emergencies, by gathering inputs from a range of sources. Responding to the different rhythms of policymaking, and striking the right balance between formal and informal inputs, are crucial aspects of effective scientific advice.
3. It's important to distinguish between 'science for policy' and 'policy for science'
In many systems, advisors or advisory bodies combine a responsibility for the use of scientific evidence in policymaking ('science for policy') with a role in determining the budgets and structure of the research and innovation system ('policy for science'). The lines between these can easily become blurred, not least because areas of 'science for policy' may have implications for particular research priorities or funding. However, where possible, it is useful to keep the two roles distinct, to avoid being seen primarily as a lobbyist for resources for science.
It can be a challenge for scientific advisors to extend the same commitment to impartial evidence to the management of the research system that they bring to other areas of policy. But it can be done: former US presidential science advisor John Marburger won plaudits for his willingness to ask tough questions about the evidence base for research funding in a 2006 speech, which led to the creation of the National Science Foundation's programme on the 'science of science and innovation policy'. Such efforts should focus not only on the economic case for research funding, but also on its social and public value, and on opening up debates about research priorities to more diverse perspectives.
4. Advisers often have to act as intermediaries, brokers and communicators
Scientists are typically appointed as advisors because of their deep expertise and standing in a particular field of research, but (except in technical committees) they may only rarely be asked to provide advice which draws on their narrow area of expertise. More often, their role is to act as intermediaries, able to translate, aggregate and synthesize varied perspectives and sources of evidence.
Roger Pielke Jr. identifies several roles that scientists can play in policymaking, and suggests that the most crucial of these is the 'honest broker', who is able to help decision makers to choose wisely between the available options on a given topic. Ottmar Edenhofer, who recently co-chaired Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, offers a related metaphor of the scientific advisor as a 'cartographer' or 'map maker' of policy paths. It is important for advisors to be clear when they are moving from 'honest broker' mode into more explicit advocacy of a particular policy position (as inevitably happens from time to time), as a failure to do so can undermine trust.
Another aspect of a scientific advisor's intermediary role is to look beyond the scientific content of a particular issue and communicate the broader methodological principles and concepts that underpin scientific evidence. William Sutherland and colleagues suggest twenty key points (such as 'no measurement is exact', 'correlation does not imply causation' and randomization avoids bias') that policymakers and the wider public should bear in mind when interpreting scientific claims.
5. You can't resolve value conflicts through appeals to facts alone
Scientific advisors and advisory bodies spend a lot of their time engaged in debates that reflect what some have dubbed 'post-normal science': where facts are uncertain, values are in dispute, stakes are high and decisions are urgent. Arguments over climate change and GM crops are two obvious examples, but there are many others.
Any issue where science is an important factor, but where values, ethics and politics are also in tension, is unlikely to be resolved through a simple statement of the scientific evidence. To assume a linear relationship between evidence and policymaking is usually a mistake, and advisors need to recognize the many ways in which evidence, values and political judgments combine to produce decisions. As Sir Peter Gluckman argues, this is not to deny that science 'should hold a privileged place' among the types of knowledge that may be meaningful to policymakers, but this privilege is fragile and depends on not overstating what is known, and on acknowledging scientific limits and uncertainties.
6. Effective advice increasingly relies on interdisciplinary expertise
There is a growing recognition across advisory systems that identifying solutions to cross-cutting policy problems will require input not only from natural scientists, but also from engineers, social scientists and other experts. For example, in the UK, it is now accepted that social scientists should form part of the network of departmental chief scientific advisors, and the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology recently established a social science section.
Some argue for 'chief social scientists' or 'chief historians' to be appointed alongside chief scientists, but creating separate structures ducks the more important challenge of how to integrate an appropriate mix of advice and evidence from a wide range of disciplines. In this context, it can be helpful to distinguish between multidisciplinarity, which is usually about building better links between different disciplines, each of which continues to rely on its usual methods and modes of enquiry, and genuine interdisciplinarity which encourages various disciplines to cross subject boundaries, enabling, as Andy Stirling argues, 'more radical interactions between different styles of knowledge, fostering potentially transformative solutions.'
Similarly, effective advisory systems now draw their evidence from a wide range of methods, including scientific studies, randomized controlled trials, statistical data, socioeconomic models and forecasts, opinion polls, observational studies, and more qualitative modes of social analysis and public engagement. The growing availability of online 'big data' also has the potential to supplement and enrich existing methods.
Approaches to scientific advice that draw on a more diverse range of disciplinary and methodological inputs may in turn lead to less emphasis on reaching a 'consensus', which may obscure legitimate scientific disagreements and uncertainties, in favour of more 'plural and conditional' modes of advice. If the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee can reach decisions on interest rates, with differences of opinion among expert members made public and their rationale openly discussed, why scientific advisory processes can't operate on a similar basis?
7. Science advisers need to align with broader shifts towards evidence-informed policymaking
Many governments are showing renewed enthusiasm for evidence-based policy and more 'experimental' approaches to policymaking, in which scientific methods, such as randomised control trials, are used to inform policy options. Examples include the UK's network of 'What Works' evidence centres.
These efforts are often being driven from the demand side by policymakers and civil servants, and may operate separately from structures for scientific advice. But the synergies between these agendas are obvious, and scientific advisory bodies should position themselves at the forefront of this agenda.
There is now a growing 'science of scientific advice', and advisors need to draw more systematically on research in political science, social psychology, behavioural economics, and science policy which investigates why certain kinds of expert advice are acted upon, and others not. This requires concerted efforts from both sides - academics and practitioners - to connect the latest scholarship to advisory processes and practices.
8. We need more exchange & learning across different systems
Above all, the aim of the Auckland conference is to improve the exchange of ideas, lessons and best practices across different advisory systems. Other such meetings do take place, including the Carnegie Group of science advisors, which was established in 1991 to enable science ministers and advisors from the G8 nations to meet annually. But the Auckland meeting is an ambitious response to calls for a more open and inclusive global forum for such discussions.
Auckland links to wider agendas around 'science diplomacy' and collaboration in pursuit of shared science policy goals. It coincides with an ongoing OECD project to examine and strengthen scientific advisory systems, which will report next year (LINK) And it takes place just weeks after Anne Glover, CSA to the President of the European Commission, launched a new network of scientific advisers from twelve EU member states.
The Auckland summit hopefully represents just the start of a conversation. Every system can benefit from a process that brings together advisers, policymakers, practitioners, experts and others on a regular basis to reflect on progress, share ideas and chart future agendas for the science and art of scientific advice.
James Wilsdon is professor of science and democracy at the Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex (@jameswilsdon); Kristiann Allen is chief of staff in the Office of the New Zealand Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor (@ChiefSciAdvisor); Katsia Paulavets is a science officer at ICSU, the International Council for Science (@ICSUnews). This article is an extract from a briefing paper written for the Science Advice to Governments summit, which gets underway today in Auckland, New Zealand (@GlobalSciAdvice)
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