The two-year, nationwide public engagement programme ‘sciencehorizons’ has concluded and reported on its findings. The next part of the process, underway as Science & Public Affairs goes to press, opens up possibilities for its conclusions to be incorporated into science and technology policy-making in a way as yet unseen.
Drawing on extensive data from three types of public engagement activity, the sciencehorizons programme was the first UK public engagement exercise to focus on people’s opinions of the potential future uses of science and technology. It used a set of fictitious potential scenarios set in 2025 and covered subjects such as climate change, health and genetics, as well as light-hearted issues such as the future of fridges.
Positive about science
The conclusions of sciencehorizons show that participants are broadly positive about the potential of science and technology, particularly its capacity to help improve our health, environment and lifestyle, but are concerned about society becoming over-dependent on technology, about its potential risks – including relating to privacy, and about the possibility that technologies might not be distributed in a way that benefits ordinary people.
These conclusions, together with those from a parallel stakeholder-consultation exercise called Wider Implications of Science and Technology (WIST), will have been synthesised and presented in a report to government by the time Science & Public Affairs goes to press.
Minister for Science and Innovation Ian Pearson described the exercise as ‘… a new, different way of talking with the public about science and technology [...]. It also represents a test model for evaluating how effectively different styles of public engagement might work.’
Informing policy
Pippa Hyam, Director of Dialogue by Design, the company at the helm of the sciencehorizons programme, explained: ‘The outcomes of sciencehorizons and WIST will go for internal consultation within government. This will help identify any gaps in policies and the relevant policy owners who can address them.’ An important aim at the beginning, she pointed out, was that the issues raised should not just go into a ‘black hole’ but that they should be correlated with the emerging technologies to which they relate and the people responsible for the relevant policies.
A spokeperson at DIUS confirmed there were plans to review the findings internally with a view to informing policy where necessary, adding that the overarching programme, Sciencewise, is geared to bringing public engagement to the fore in science policy-making.
The sciencehorizons exercise was run by Dialogue by Design in partnership with the Graphic Science Unit, BBC Worldwide Interactive Learning and Shared Practice.
The programme was funded by Sciencewise, a DIUS programme designed to equip government to engage in successful two-way communication with the public.
www.sciencewise.org.uk/ www.sciencehorizons.org.uk/
More about WIST is available here
Vanessa Spedding is the Shorts Editor