Robert John Evans

A Collaboratively-Derived Science-Policy Research Agenda

The need for policy makers to understand science and for scientists to understand policy processes is widely recognised. However, the science-policy relationship is sometimes difficult and occasionally dysfunctional; it is also increasingly visible, because it must deal with contentious issues, or itself becomes a matter of public controversy, or both. We suggest that identifying key unanswered questions on the relationship between science and policy will catalyse and focus research in this field. To identify these questions, a collaborative procedure was employed with 52 participants selected to cover a wide range of experience in both science and policy, including people from government, non-governmental organisations, academia and industry. These participants consulted with colleagues and submitted 239 questions. An initial round of voting was followed by a workshop in which 40 of the most important questions were identified by further discussion and voting. The resulting list includes questions about the effectiveness of science-based decision-making structures; the nature and legitimacy of expertise; the consequences of changes such as increasing transparency; choices among different sources of evidence; the implications of new means of characterising and representing uncertainties; and ways in which policy and political processes affect what counts as authoritative evidence. We expect this exercise to identify important theoretical questions and to help improve the mutual understanding and effectiveness of those working at the interface of science and policy.

Researching the Sustainable City: Three Modes of Interdisciplinarity

In this paper we explore the practice of interdisciplinarity by examining how the UK research councils addressed the problem of the sustainable city during the 1990s. In developing their research programmes, the councils recognised that the problems of the sustainable city transcended conventional disciplinary boundaries and that an interdisciplinary approach was needed. In practice, however, initially radical proposals to research the city as a complex combination of science and technology and society contracted into more cognate collaborations that emphasised either science or technology or society, with the result that interdisciplinarity came to be located within research councils rather than between them. This, in turn, led to the development of a third kind of interdisciplinarity as the responsibility for making the connections between the research programmes was outsourced to the user communities—the local authorities. Unfortunately, local authorities struggled to find the resources to conduct this work so that the radical interdisciplinarity recommended at the start of the decade remained unaccomplished at the end. In describing these events we emphasise roles of paradigms and epistemic cultures in shaping research approaches and the complications they raise for the triangulation between approaches that is assumed in the idea of interdisciplinarity. We do not wish to be entirely negative, however, and conclude by suggesting some ways in which the quality and success of this much-needed interdisciplinary work could be increased.

Mapping the integrative field: taking stock of socio-technical collaborations

Responsible innovation requires that scientific and other expert practices be responsive to society. We take stock of various collaborative approaches to socio-technical integration that seek to broaden the societal contexts technical experts take into account during their routine activities. Part of a larger family of engaged scholarship that includes inter- and transdisciplinarity as well as stakeholder and public engagement, we distinguish collaborative socio-technical integration in terms of its proximity to and transformation of expert practices. We survey a variety of approaches that differ widely in terms of their integrative methods, conceptions of societal context, roles, and aspirations for intervention. Taking a handful of “communities of integration” as exemplars, we then provide a framework for comparing the forms, means, and ends of collaborative integration. We conclude by reflecting on some of the main features of, and tensions within, this developing arena of practical inquiry and engagem...

The politics and policy of the Third Wave: new technologies and society

We outline the political implications of the program known as the ‘Third Wave of Science Studies’. Here we develop the politics of the Third Wave showing how it bears on technological decision-making in the public domain. The main concern is to combat ‘technological populism’. The prescriptions that emerge include asking and answering as many technical questions as is reasonable and giving these questions and answers the maximum exposure before making what is always a political decision. The implication is a preference for democracies which actively promote discussion and debate of technical matters yet which reject populism of all kinds while still rejecting technocracy. Central to the overt politics of the Third Wave is ‘elective modernism’ which includes scientific values among those which should be at the heart of a good society.

The structure and formation of mud volcano summit calderas

Circular depressions bounded by inward-dipping faults found at the upper terminations of large mud volcano systems (>500 m diameter) are termed ‘mud volcano summit calderas’. From new mapping and comparison with previously identified examples we describe a series of common structural and morphological features found at a number of calderas and propose a mechanism for caldera formation. A typical example consists of concentric deformational and volcanic zones including an outermost topographic rim, inward-dipping circular fault system, ‘moat’ and raised central ‘pedestal’ of freshly extruded mud volcanic sediment. This distinctive ‘moat and pedestal’ morphology can be explained in terms of the quantity and rheology of extruded mud, and appears characteristic of calderas from the South Caspian Basin and elsewhere. The association of fresh mud volcanic deposits with the calderas in combination with extensive literature on caldera modelling leads us to conclude that the most likely causal mechanism is subsidence as a result of evacuation of fluids and sediment from shallow structural levels during eruptions. Summit calderas mapped in this study characterize dormant periods of mud volcanism in subaerial and submarine settings, and appear to be a common structural element in the extrusive domain of mud volcano systems.

Evaluating an Electronic Plagiarism Detection Service: The Importance of Trust and the Difficulty of Proving Students Don't Cheat.

Plagiarism by students is seen as an increasing problem. The fear is that students will use the internet to obtain analysis, interpretation or even complete assignments and then submit these as their own work. Electronic plagiarism detection services may help to prevent such unfair practice but, in doing so, they create a new problem: certifying the absence of plagiarism. This article reports the results of an evaluation of one such service within an interdisciplinary school of social sciences. The article describes how the system works and the experiences of staff and students in using the service, together with an evaluation of the data generated. The key findings are that the service did identify examples of poor scholarship and unfair practice that had been missed under the usual marking system but that rigorously checking every script for plagiarism was impractical. Trust and student honesty thus remain central to a successful academic system.

Quantifying the Tacit: The Imitation Game and Social Fluency

This article describes a new research method called the Imitation Game. The method is based on the idea of ‘interactional expertise’, which distinguishes discursive performance from practical expertise and can be used to investigate the relationship between groups that diverge culturally or experientially. We explain the theory that underpins the method and report results from a number of empirical trials. These include ‘proof of concept’ research with the colour blind, the blind and those with perfect pitch, as well as Imitation Games on more conventional sociological topics such as the social relationships between men and women, homosexuals and heterosexuals, and active Christians and secular students. These studies demonstrate the potential of the method and its distinctive features. We conclude by suggesting that the Imitation Game could complement existing techniques by providing a new way to compare social relationships across social and temporal distances in both a qualitative and a quantitative way.

Detecting deterioration in patients with chronic disease using telemonitoring: navigating the 'trough of disillusionment'

OBJECTIVES To examine the evidence base for telemonitoring designed for patients who have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and heart failure, and to assess whether telemonitoring fulfils the principles of monitoring and is ready for implementation into routine settings. DESIGN Qualitative data collection using interviews and participation in a multi-path mapping process. PARTICIPANTS Twenty-six purposively selected informants completed semi-structured interviews and 24 individuals with expertise in the relevant clinical and informatics domains from academia, industry, policy and provider organizations and participated in a multi-path mapping workshop. RESULTS The evidence base for the effectiveness of telemonitoring is weak and inconsistent, with insufficient cost-effectiveness studies. When considered against an accepted definition of monitoring, telemonitoring is found wanting. Telemonitoring has not been able so far to ensure that the technologies fit into the life world of the patient and into the clinical and organizational milieu of health service delivery systems. CONCLUSIONS To develop effective telemonitoring for patients with chronic disease, more attention needs to be given to agreeing the central aim of early detection and, to ensure potential implementation, engaging a wide range of stakeholders in the design process, especially patients and clinicians.

You cannot be serious! Public understanding of technology with special reference to 'Hawk-Eye'

Public understanding of science, though it approaches the specialist knowledge of experts only in rare circumstances, can be enhanced more broadly in respect of the processes of science and technology. The public understanding of measurement errors and confidence intervals could be enhanced if “sports decision aids,” such as the Hawk-Eye system, were to present their results in a different way. There is a danger that Hawk-Eye as used could inadvertently cause naïve viewers to overestimate the ability of technological devices to resolve disagreement among humans because measurement errors are not made salient. For example, virtual reconstructions can easily be taken to show “exactly what really happened.” Suggestions are made for how confidence levels might be measured and represented and “health warnings” attached to reconstructions. A general principle for the use of sports decision aids is put forward. A set of open questions about Hawk-Eye is presented which, if answered, could help inform discussions of its use and accuracy.

Views of the City: Multiple pathways to sustainable transport futures

In this paper we look behind the notion of sustainable transport and highlight the tensions and contradictions between the different ways of achieving this. The paper examines transportation plans for a major UK city and describes how these develop the idea and practice of sustainable transport and demand management along three quite distinct trajectories. By focusing on both the technological and the institutional dimensions of three different routes to sustainable transport, the analysis explicates the different ways in which the urban transport problem is framed, the different socio-technical logics of demand management embodied in the plans and the differing ways in which institutional relationships are (re)constituted. A key finding is that technological and institutional innovations are inversely related so that radical technological innovation often serves to reinforce existing social relations of power and exclusion. The conclusion drawn is that the choice is not just between a sustainable and an unsustainable transport future, but also between different forms of sustainability.