Science for Policy

In recent months, there's been a small explosion of guidelines and handbooks on how to do science advice. In today's episode, Toby Wardman takes a deep dive into Science Europe's recent guidance for research-funding and research-performing organisations, in conversation with their author, Nicola Dotti.

This is probably the last podcast in the world to get round to talking about how AI is changing the world -- but we wanted to wait until we had the right people in the room to talk specifically about AI in relation to science, policy, and science-for-policy. If you like this conversation with Professor Andrea Rizzoli and Manuel Kugler -- and you will like it! -- stay tuned in the coming months, because we've got more AI-themed episodes up our sleeves.

It's sometimes easy to forget that even the most well-designed science advice institution, and even the most persuasive advisor, are still operating as part of a broad ecosystem in which both policymakers and the general public are exposed to vast quantities of ostensibly factual information of varying quality, much of it mediated through algorithms. In this episode, Caitlin Chin-Rothmann from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC talks us through this broader context and how science advisors can adapt to it.

Why does evidence sometimes land and sometimes not? Why do some policies fail even though the evidence suggests they should succeed?  And what can we do about it? Saying "it's all about the context" is easy, but what does this actually mean? And more importantly, how can we make that into a useful insight in advance, rather than just a post-hoc justification for things not working out?

Vanesa Weyrauch and Leandro Echt have looked into this question in some detail, and their organisation, Purpose & Ideas, created a framework to tackle exactly these questions. In this episode, they discuss with Toby Wardman of the SAM not just why context matters, but what that actually means and what we can do about it.

• Context Matters framework: https://www.purposeandideas.org/post/context-matters-but-are-we-prepared-to-build-on-this 

Politicians don't really have a great understanding of the citizens they serve, according to Michael Bang Petersen. In place of evidence from decades of psychological research, they tend to substitute their own instincts and common sense, together with more or less apposite fragments of behavioural science and economics. Nowhere was this more evident than during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, when opportunities to build trust and communicate science were squandered. Tune in and settle down for an intriguing tour of how things ought to be done.

How do scientific models inform policymakers? How can they keep countries honest in international climate negotiations? When is uncertainty not so much of a problem? And how much does it matter if policymakers don't instantly grasp the ins and outs of a model which takes six months for scientists to learn? Join the SAM's Toby Wardman on a deep dive into what happens when scientific models meet international politics.

Climate change negotiators preparing for UN summits must sift through a truly intimidating quantity of scientific material to familiarise themselves with the latest evidence. That's why Future Earth, along with the Earth League and the World Climate Research Programme, has delivered its pithy 'Ten New Insights on Climate Change' every year since 2017.

But what is the process behind these reports? How are the insights chosen, by whom, and why? And what is it about this model of science advice that also made it attractive to the European Commission when it wanted to figure out which climate and biodiversity research to fund in the future? Daniel Ospina and Judit Ungvári talk to Toby Wardman of the SAM about the ins and outs of science advice at the highest level of global decision-making.

10 new climate insights: https://10insightsclimate.science/ 

Dr Patricia Gruber is the science and technology advisor to Antony Blinken, President Biden's secretary of state. In a wide-ranging conversation with Toby Wardman from the SAM, she discusses how she got her job, what it's like, and what she can and can't do. She also lays out the US's approach to international science diplomacy, including the wisdom (or folly) or withholding scientific collaboration as a diplomatic measure.

• Report 'When will we ever learn?': https://www.cgdev.org/publication/when-will-we-ever-learn-improving-lives-through-impact-evaluation