The role of TA in Systemic Innovation Policy

Starting from the perception of innovation as a multi actor, multi level strategic game, this paper addresses the role of strategic intelligence, more in particular of TA, in systemic innovation policies. First the history of TA in the US and Europe over the last 4 decades are described and its role in innovation policies discussed. Hereafter the role and (possible) impact of strategic intelligence and systemic innovation policies is analysed. Two recent cases of Constructive TA are used to illustrate how this role is operationalised. The paper is concluded with conclusions on how strategic intelligence may further reinforce systemic innovation policies. Special attention is paid to the role of strategic intelligence in empowering users and other non traditional actors in innovation processes.

Principal-agent theory and research policy: An introduction

The rational choice perspective is prominent in many sociological, economic and political science literature but has been undervalued until now in the field of science studies. This special issue attempts to revalorise this perspective by introducing the principal-agent theory with relation to research policy-making. The introduction presents the basic features of the model of principal-agent and reviews the theoretical development and applications in research policy. It summarises the main findings of the articles in this issue and concludes that the studies in the framework of principal-agent demonstrate the willingness of combining theoretical rigour and ‘requisite variety' by applying the theory to a large number of different fields linked to research policy-makin

Creativity and destructiveness in art and psychoanalysis

This paper focuses on the creativity of the patient in analysis and compares it to that of the artist. Taking artists’ descriptions of their practices as its starting point, the paper suggests that the relationship between patient and analyst parallels that between artist and medium. Psychoanalysis and artistic process can both be seen in terms of a complex interplay between oneness and separateness in which aggression and destructiveness play an essential part. The paper includes a discussion of different forms of aggression and destructiveness within the creative process with particular reference to Winnicott’s paper ‘The Use of an Object’ and Rozsika Parker’s ‘The Angel in the House’. It suggests that a consideration of artists’ creative processes can shed light both on the experience of the patient in analysis and on the role of the analyst in facilitating the development of the patient’s creativity

Boundary Work for Sustainable Development: Natural Resource Management at the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)

Previous research on the determinants of effectiveness in knowledge systems seeking to support sustainable development has highlighted the importance of “boundary work” through which research communities organize their relations with new science, other sources of knowledge, and the worlds of action and policymaking. A growing body of scholarship postulates specific attributes of boundary work that promote used and useful research. These propositions, however, are largely based on the experience of a few industrialized countries. We report here on an effort to evaluate their relevance for efforts to harness science in support of sustainability in the developing world. We carried out a multicountry comparative analysis of natural resource management programs conducted under the auspices of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. We discovered six distinctive kinds of boundary work contributing to the successes of those programs—a greater variety than has been documented in previous studies. We argue that these different kinds of boundary work can be understood as a dual response to the different uses for which the results of specific research programs are intended, and the different sources of knowledge drawn on by those programs. We show that these distinctive kinds of boundary work require distinctive strategies to organize them effectively. Especially important are arrangements regarding participation of stakeholders, accountability in governance, and the use of “boundary objects.” We conclude that improving the ability of research programs to produce useful knowledge for sustainable development will require both greater and differentiated support for multiple forms of boundary work

Toward a General Theory of Boundary Work: Insights from the CGIAR’s Natural Resource Management Programs

Previous research on the determinants of effectiveness in knowledge systems seeking to support sustainable development has highlighted the importance of “boundary work” through which research communities organize their relations with other fields of science, other sources of knowledge, and the worlds of action and policymaking. A growing body of scholarship postulates specific attributes of boundary work that promote used and useful research. These propositions, however, are largely based on the experience of a few industrialized countries. We report here on an effort to evaluate their relevance for efforts to harness science in support of sustainability in the developing world. We carried out a multi-country comparative analysis of natural resource management programs conducted under the auspices of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). We discovered 6 distinctive kinds of boundary work contributing to successes of the CGIAR programs—a greater variety than has been documented in previous studies. We propose that these different kinds of boundary work can be understood as a dual response to the different uses for which the results of specific research programs are intended, and the different sources of knowledge drawn on by those programs. We show that these distinctive kinds of boundary work require distinctive strategies to organize them effectively. Especially important are arrangements regarding participation of stakeholders, governance, and the use of boundary objects. We conclude that improving the ability of research programs to produce useful knowledge for sustainable development will require both greater and differentiated support for multiple forms of boundary work

A social licence for science: capturing the public or co-constructing research?

The “social licence to operate” has been invoked in science policy discussions including the 2007 Universal Ethical Code for scientists issued by the UK Government Office for Science. Drawing from sociological research on social licence and STS interventions in science policy, the authors explore the relevance of expectations of a social licence for scientific research and scientific contributions to public decision-making, and what might be involved in seeking to create one. The process of seeking a social licence is not the same as trying to create public or community acceptance for a project whose boundaries and aims have already been fully defined prior to engagement. Such attempts to “capture” the public might be successful from time to time but their legitimacy is open to question especially where their engagement with alternative research futures is “thin”. Contrasting a national dialogue on stem cells with the early history of research into bioenergy, we argue that social licence activities need to be open to a “thicker” engagement with the social. Co-constructing a licence suggests a reciprocal relationship between the social and the scientific with obligations for public and private institutions that shape and are shaped by science, rather than just science alone

A Measure Predicting Treatment Outcome For Sexual Offenders

Researchers generally agree that treatment reduces the likelihood of sexual offender recidivism. However, studies show attrition rates of up to 85% in some treatment programs for sex offenders. Because many risk factors for recidivism and treatment attrition are the same, the present study used gold-standard risk assessments to predict which sex offenders would not complete a community treatment program. The Static-99r, Stable-2007, and URICA assessed static risk factors, dynamic needs, and responsivity to treatment for 289 sex offenders. Pre-treatment scores from the sex offenders in the sample indicated that these assessment instruments could predict treatment attrition for sex offenders in community treatment (AUC = .928). The Stable-2007 was the best predictor of treatment attrition. Implications of the results and directions for future research are also discussed

Climate geoengineering: issues of path-dependence and socio-technical lock-in

As academic and policy interest in climate geoengineering grows, the potential irreversibility of technological developments in this domain has been raised as a pressing concern. The literature on socio-technical lock-in and path dependence is illuminating in helping to situate current concerns about climate geoengineering and irreversibility in the context of academic understandings of historical socio-technical development and persistence. This literature provides a wealth of material illustrating the pervasiveness of positive feedbacks of various types (from the discursive to the material) leading to complex socio-technical entanglements which may resist change and become inflexible even in the light of evidence of negative impacts. With regard to climate geoengineering, there are concerns that geoengineering technologies might contribute so-called ‘carbon lock-in’, or become irreversibly ‘locked-in’ themselves. In particular, the scale of infrastructures that geoengineering interventions would require, and the issue of the so-called ‘termination effect’ have been discussed in these terms. Despite the emergent and somewhat ill-defined nature of the field, some authors also suggest that the extant framings of geoengineering in academic and policy literatures may already demonstrate features recognizable as forms of cognitive lock-in, likely to have profound implications for future developments in this area. While the concepts of path-dependence and lock-in are the subject of ongoing academic critique, by drawing analytical attention to these pervasive processes of positive feedback and entanglement, this literature is highly relevant to current debates around geoengineering

Integrating Public Deliberation into Engineering Systems: Participatory Technology Assessment of NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission

We discuss an experiment employing participatory technology assessment (pTA), a public deliberation method for eliciting lay citizen input prior to making decisions about science and technology, to inform upstream engineering decisions concerning technical aspects of NASA's Asteroid Initiative. In partnership with NASA, the Expert and Citizen Assessment of Science and Technology network conducted a pTA-based forum on NASA's Asteroid Initiative in late 2014. The goal of the exercise was to assess citizens' values and preferences about potential asteroid detection, asteroid mitigation, and exploration-based technologies associated with NASA's Initiative. This paper discusses the portion of the forum that focused on the Asteroid Redirect Mission, an effort to redirect an asteroid into lunar orbit that astronauts can study. The forum sought public input on two options for performing the mission that NASA included in technical assessments to make a down select decision: Option A (capturing a 10-meter-diameter asteroid) or Option B (redirecting a several-meter-diameter boulder from the surface of a larger asteroid). We describe the values and perceptions participants had about Option A and B, how these results were used by NASA managers, and the impact the results of the participatory technology assessment had on the down select