A Tradition of Excellence in the Midst of Competing Political Forces

Because policymaking is not a science, the role of scientific information in the decision processes of all political cultures is a tension-filled issue.  Governments understand the value of science-and-technology driven economies in the 21st century, and therefore accept the notion that the practitioners of S&T should provide some kind of input to the political process.  It is just not clear what it should be and how it should come about. For the United States, this is not a new issue -- and the creation of the National Academy of Sciences in 1863 testifies to the durability of a question that takes on different forms with each passing decade.  The key issues are well-established: (1) how should the policymakers express their need for scientific advice? (2) how should the evidence for determining that advice be collected and analyzed? (3) how should the results be communicated to the government and to the public? and (4) what is the accountability of the policymakers for using that advice?  The NAS has a wide range of experience (about 200 reports each year), and yet there is no single model.  The presentation will provide a sense of the variety of approaches. The last decade has seen a more active outreach process to propagate these Academy-like bodies in many countries, nearly 100 in all now.  The globalization of science and technology has led naturally to exploration of new approaches to harmonizing scientific advice to the many international, national, and sub-national decisionmaking bodies.  The presentation will give an overview of the issues that have arisen in these early years of such collaboration.