Science at the table of policy
Ruth Morgan
Professor of Crime and Forensic Science and Vice Dean (Interdisciplinarity Entrepreneurship) of the Faculty of Engineering Sciences at University College London
Policy labs recently interviewed Ruth Morgan, Professor of Crime and Forensic Science and Vice Dean (Interdisciplinarity Entrepreneurship) of the Faculty of Engineering Sciences at University College London, to discuss the current and future role of science in policymaking.
The COVID-19 pandemic, according to Morgan, has demonstrated that science can successfully contribute to policymaking during a crisis. However, there are several challenges still to face if science is to become a standard part of public policy, “not just when there’s a crisis, but as a culture.” To assure a place for science “at the table, rather than on tap”, Morgan believes that a broad, interdisciplinary approach is required, bringing together individuals with a variety of tools and skillsets
Commentary
Science at the table of policy
Ruth Morgan
August 6th, 2021
Policy labs recently interviewed Ruth Morgan, Professor of Crime and Forensic Science and Vice Dean (Interdisciplinarity Entrepreneurship) of the Faculty of Engineering Sciences at University College London, to discuss the current and future role of science in policymaking.
The COVID-19 pandemic, according to Morgan, has demonstrated that science can successfully contribute to policymaking during a crisis. However, there are several challenges still to face if science is to become a standard part of public policy, “not just when there’s a crisis, but as a culture.” To assure a place for science “at the table, rather than on tap”, Morgan believes that a broad, interdisciplinary approach is required, bringing together individuals with a variety of tools and skillsets. According to Morgan, to tackle serious societal challenges, “we need the hard sciences, we need the social sciences, we need humanities, we need the arts; we need that really diverse group of people who have very different ways of seeing.” She stressed the importance of remembering that complex societal challenges require complex solutions, and that we must be continually mindful of slipping into what authors Collins and Porras call 'the tyranny of the OR', searching for reductionist, binary solutions. Instead, we should embrace the 'genius of the AND', and devise compound solutions. In Morgan’s words, “solutions don’t generally come from single disciplines; they emerge from the intersection of different disciplines.”
Collaboration between policymakers and experts from diverse disciplines could be fostered via both “top-down” and “bottom-up” pathways, explained Morgan. In a top-down approach, governing bodies could define clear, regulated ways of interpolating science into policy. In a bottom-up approach, opportunities for serendipitous connections between scientists and policymakers could be created. As an example of the latter, Morgan cited the Young Scientists programme of the World Economic Forum, of which she is a part. This programme brings together participants with diverse backgrounds and varying levels of experience, to encourage creative innovation and problem-solving. This programme, and others like it, “have the potential to ripple out, infiltrate, and change culture,” said Morgan.
Morgan outlined several barriers that must be overcome if science is to become embedded in the policymaking process. One critical step is to help people to understand that science is provisional, not definitive. Recently, for example, the public has looked to science to tell us whether to enact certain public health measures, like wearing facemasks or observing social-distancing guidelines, and frustration can result when official recommendations are updated. Asking science for definitive, unchanging answers to such questions, “is a road that’s going to bring a lot of pain”, in Morgan’s opinion. As new data come to light, conclusions and ensuing recommendations might evolve and change, and that does not mean that scientists or policymakers initially provided “bad” scientific advice.
To harness the valuable insights that scientific data can bring to the table of policy while minimizing the public frustration often triggered by its provisional nature, Morgan believes that transparency is key. Public access to data and the processes used to generate conclusions from those data are crucial. Even if hindsight shows a given piece of science-based advice to be less-than-optimal, “If the data are available and you’ve got transparency in how different scientists have derived an opinion as to the meaning of that data … that will help to prevent the misuse of science in situations in which there are competing agendas”, noted Morgan.
Morgan’s final suggestion is summed up by her quote, “Science shouldn’t be done to people, it needs to be done with people”. This involves working from the outset in collaboration with end-users, to develop innovations that both meet their needs and are appropriate for the larger context in which end-users operate. Morgan gave the example of investing in the creation of a powerful forensic tool that might solve a specific challenge faced in crime detection but could never gain real-world traction because of the time- and resource constraints faced by most police forces. In the case of policy-making, she explained that working with people involves, “having a suitably informed understanding” of the needs and drivers of the groups we hope to benefit with science-based decisions or innovations. With this foreknowledge, Morgan continued, we can “position the science we are doing in the way that addresses a need”.
As science continues to seek a seat at the table of policy, addressing these challenges and others will require clear and consistent engagement with both policymakers and the public, such that science becomes embedded into mindsets. If we want science to have agency and potency in the world and to meaningfully contribute to solutions, Morgan believes that, as scientists, “we need to learn a lot of different ways of communicating. Not only do we need to be writing effectively for academic journals and speaking at disciplinary conferences, but we also need to learn skills for speaking and engaging with the public and policymakers.” Once effective, ongoing discussions between policymakers and scientists are commonplace and science is firmly embedded in the mindsets and perspectives of decisionmakers, Morgan hopes that a scientific contribution to all types of policy will become the norm.
