Ash dieback (Chalara), free trade, and the technocracy of biosecurity
July 2, 2015
This is a post by Judith Tsouvalis, one of the research fellows on the Making Science Public team. In March 2012, tree and plant health became a matter of national concern in Britain following the discovery of an East Asian fungus called Hymenoscyphus fraxineus at a nursery in Buckinghamshire, England. The ash saplings infected by …
Expertise and the changing nature of universities: Reflections on a recent European Ombudsman ruling
June 15, 2015
A recent ruling by the European Ombudsman highlights the effects of the changing nature of the university on the use of expertise in science governance and policy-making more broadly. The Ombudsman recognises universities are developing closer ties with industry and becoming commercial entities in research production and commercialisation of results. She argues that traditional notions …
What role for a scientist in political science communication?
April 10, 2015
This is a GUEST POST by ATHENE DONALD, Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Cambridge and Master of Churchill College. A couple of months ago Brigitte Nerlich, who hosts this blog, asked me to contribute a post. As it happened, when she sent me the invitation I had just read, and possibly inwardly …
The well-informed citizen
April 1, 2015
Last week Greg Hollin sent me an interesting article by Charles Taylor on Latour and metaphor which was an enjoyalbe read, as it sparkles with word play from the title onwards. However, this is not what I want to write about. When reading the article I happened to glance at a footnote mentioning an old …
Basic science and climate politics: A flashback to 1989
February 20, 2015
We were trying to empty a room for refurbishment. So we rummaged through some old papers which included amongst many others: Karl Popper’s last paper entitled “Towards an evolutionary theory of knowledge” (with the enigmatic scribble: ‘Popper’s last paper is better than ‘Krapps last tape’), and a typescript from 1989 of a speech by Margaret …
Scientific citizenship
December 14, 2014
I recently read an excellent thesis on scientific citizenship by soon to be Dr Beverley Gibbs (whom you all know from her posts on this blog!). She uncovered various as yet under-explored aspects of scientific citizenship, focusing in particular on membership, rights & responsibilities and participation (and I hope she’ll write a blog post about …
Risk assessment policy as regulatory science
September 15, 2014
This blog is a joint posting by Sarah Hartley and Warren Pearce Following the University of Nottingham’s Circling the Square conference an interesting debate emerged around some of the fundamentals of science: objectivity, the confounding of science with regulatory science and what counts as science. Much of this took place under a post by our colleague, …
Black sky research
August 2, 2014
A few days ago I chatted with an industry-based innovations manager who, in passing, mentioned the word ‘black sky research’. We didn’t get a chance to explore this concept further but the phrase stuck in my mind. Then Philip Moriarty tweeted a link to an article on the threat of the impact agenda to blue …
Science is not what you want it to be
May 25, 2014
This is a GUEST POST by PHILIP MORIARTY The debates sparked by Circling the Square continue “below the line” of a number of insightful blog posts. (And mine). [And mine, Brigitte] This level of engagement between natural scientists and sociologists is great to see and, given the momentum we established last week, it would be …
Blogging the Circling of the Square
May 23, 2014
Members from the Making Science Public programme co-organised a very successful interdisciplinary conference (20-22 May) with the University of Nottingham’s Science, Technology and Society research Priority Group, led by Reiner Grundmann. Sarah Hartley, Philip Moriarty and Brigitte Nerlich were part of the conference committee and Warren Pearce contributed to a panel session. Almost all of …
MSP bookmarks
- Twitter May 8, 2017
- Social innovations in Europe #RRI November 3, 2015
- Harvey Graff, the undisciplinarian September 20, 2015
- Replacing Pesticides With Genetics August 31, 2015
- Addressing hazardous chemicals in the circular economy August 25, 2015
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