In modern global economies, how can we govern science, technology, risk and the environment more effectively? As the pace of innovation has increased, the governance agenda has, itself, been changing; policy-making is in a state of flux and governments are stressing the need for more integrated or "joined up" policies to deal with new orders of complexity. This timely book describes the new approaches to policy for science, technology, risk and the environment in the context of this modern governance agenda. The authors examine the extent to which governance is integrated, where gaps exist and where further integration might be helpful for a range of policy areas. The interdisciplinary approach bridges scientific, technical and socio-economic research at global, European, UK and regional levels. New Modes of Governance will be a valuable resource for academics, policy-makers, regulators, and science and industry communities involved in innovation.

Dramatic statements about the promise and peril of artificial intelligence for humanity abound, as an industry of experts claims that AI is poised to reshape nearly every sphere of life. Who profits from the idea that the age of AI has arrived? Why do ideas of AI's transformative potential keep reappearing in social and political discourse, and how are they linked to broader political agendas? Yarden Katz reveals the ideology embedded in the concept of artificial intelligence, contending that it both serves and mimics the logic of white supremacy. He demonstrates that understandings of AI, as a field and a technology, have shifted dramatically over time based on the needs of its funders and the professional class that formed around it. From its origins in the Cold War military-industrial complex through its present-day Silicon Valley proselytizers and eager policy analysts, AI has never been simply a technical project enabled by larger data and better computing. Drawing on intimate familiarity with the field and its practices, Katz instead asks us to see how AI reinforces models of knowledge that assume white male superiority and an imperialist worldview. Only by seeing the connection between artificial intelligence and whiteness can we prioritize alternatives to the conception of AI as an all-encompassing technological force. Bringing together theories of whiteness and race in the humanities and social sciences with a deep understanding of the history and practice of science and computing, Artificial Whiteness is an incisive, urgent critique of the uses of AI as a political tool to uphold social hierarchies.

The Future of Open Data flows from a multi-year Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Grant project that set out to explore open government geospatial data from an interdisciplinary perspective. Researchers on the grant adopted a critical social science perspective grounded in the imperative that the research should be relevant to government and civil society partners in the field. This book builds on the knowledge developed during the course of the grant and asks the question, "What is the future of open data?" The contributors' insights into the future of open data combine observations from five years of research about the Canadian open data community with a critical perspective on what could and should happen as open data efforts evolve. Each of the chapters in this book addresses different issues and each is grounded in distinct disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspectives. The opening chapter reflects on the origins of open data in Canada and how it has progressed to the present date, taking into account how the Indigenous data sovereignty movement intersects with open data. A series of chapters address some of the pitfalls and opportunities of open data and consider how the changing data context may impact sources of open data, limits on open data, and even liability for open data. Another group of chapters considers new landscapes for open data, including open data in the global South, the data priorities of local governments, and the emerging context for rural open data.

The findings of scientific research often provide an important baseline to the formation of public policy. However, effective communication to the larger public about what scientists do and know is a problem inherent to all democratic societies. It is the prerogative of democratic societies to determine what kind of scientific research will be funded. "Searching for Science Policy" offers innovative ways of thinking about how the rhetoric and practice of science operates in various institutional contexts.
The book is divided into two parts. Part 1, "Policy Uses and Misuses of Science," explores the various ways in which scientific claims are inevitably mediated by how they are used. Joel Best, draws on statistics involving missing children, violence against women, and attendance figures at political demonstrations to demonstrate how the motivations to use inaccurate and misleading numbers stems directly from the ideological and organizational interests of those using them. Judith Kleinfeld analyzes recruitment policies for women scientists at MIT, showing how hiring practices that may be justifiable on extra-scientific factors are carried out based on pseudo-scientific studies not subject to public scrutiny. Robert MacCoun addresses the journalistic misuse of drug and drug abuse statistics and shows how this profoundly distorts policy implications drawn from them. And Allan Mazur examines the role scientific evidence has come to play in the law, pointing out the pitfalls of its intrinsic quality and how such evidence may be interpreted or misinterpreted by judges and juries.
Part 2, "Searching for Science Policy," extends discussion of the role of science to specific ideas about how public policy-making might be improved in matters of law, family, environment, drug use, and health. Mark Kleiman weighs the sometimes conflicting claims of science and social order in formulating drug policy. Norval Glenn calls for closer cooperation between professional associations, the media, and researchers in reporting provisional social science findings to the public. Stanley Rothman and S. Robert Lichter examine the dynamic by which environmental organizations shape public perceptions of risk and harm. And in the concluding chapter, Sheila Jasanoff looks closely at differences between the provisional nature of science as normally practiced and the more contentious sphere of litigation that demands ultimate resolution.
In a time when scientists find themselves subject to more public scrutiny than ever before, the well-informed citizen is no longer a moral ideal but rather a social imperative. "Searching for Science Policy" helps to clarify the grounds and the circumstances of more effective use of science in public discourse.
Jonathan B. Imber is editor in chief of "Society" and Class of 1949 Professor in Ethics and professor of sociology at Wellesley College.

Research is never free of pressures and constraints and to understand its results properly these have to be assessed and analyzed. In agriculture, research into biotechnology and GMOs, as well as pesticides and herbicides, is big business - agribusiness. This book looks at the crucial roles of funding and the political context on the research agenda and its results in agricultural development. It provides a critical evaluation of the participatory methods now widely used and explores the ways in which research into biotechnology have reflected the interests of the various parties involved.

America s space program is at a turning point. After decades of global primacy, NASA has ended the space-shuttle program, cutting off its access to space. No astronauts will be launched in an American craft, from American soil, until the 2020s, and NASA may soon find itself eclipsed by other countries space programs.

With his signature wit and thought-provoking insights, Neil deGrasse Tyson one of our foremost thinkers on all things space illuminates the past, present, and future of space exploration and brilliantly reminds us why NASA matters now as much as ever. As Tyson reveals, exploring the space frontier can profoundly enrich many aspects of our daily lives, from education systems and the economy to national security and morale. For America to maintain its status as a global leader and a technological innovator, he explains, we must regain our enthusiasm and curiosity about what lies beyond our world.

Provocative, humorous, and wonderfully readable, Space Chronicles represents the best of Tyson s recent commentary, including a must-read prologue on NASA and partisan politics. Reflecting on topics that range from scientific literacy to space-travel missteps, Tyson gives us an urgent, clear-eyed, and ultimately inspiring vision for the future."

This book comprises nine essays, selected from Roy MacLeod's work on the social history of Victorian science, and is concerned with the analysis of science as a responsibility and opportunity for 19th-century statecraft. It illuminates the origins of environmental regulation, the creation of scientific inspectorates, the reform of scientific institutions, and the association of government with the patronage and support of fundamental research. Above all, it explores several of the ways in which British scientists became 'statesmen in disguise', negotiating interests and professional goals by association with the interests of the state as 'provider' and agent of efficiency in education and in the application of research.

This book explains why science and politics collide, why this is an especially critical problem at this precise time in U.S. history, and what should be done to ensure that science and politics coincide. The United States is waging a political war against science, and the stakes are increasing. When it comes to areas in which science and politics must interact, such as genetics, climate, and energy, there are always political interests pushing to spin the relevant science, but this becomes problematic when Americans abandon rationality for ideology or misinformation manufactured to confuse and persuade them. In a series of five contemporary examples, When Science and Politics Collide: The Public Interest at Risk makes the case that none of the ways in which science and politics currently communicate serve the public interest and that some of them actually result in great harm. It explains that whether disagreements are about climate change, vaccines, pandemics, or fracking, experimentally proven and reproducible data and evidence can save lives—and poor, politically motivated policies can doom them. The book concludes with recommendations for creating a more perfect union between scientific facts and political agendas.

Americans have become resigned to seeing Congress vote money for porkbarrel projects of all kinds-roads, dams, post offices, military installations-in the districts of influential legislators. In recent years Congress has, almost without public notice, extended this form of vote-buying and pandering into a new domain: science. Where formerly scientific funding proposals were evaluated by outside experts on the basis of merit, there is now an increasing consideration of congressional districts and "fair" geographical distribution. In this ground-breaking volume, Joseph P. Martino offers a critical examination of special-interest funding and the danger it poses to the integrity of American society as a whole, as well as to its scientific component.

Science Funding is distinguished by its comprehensive approach to the structural and historical background of the current situation. It examines the history of science funding from the early twentieth century through present, public vs. to taxpayers, instances of fraud, and the effects of government funding for research in universities.

Martino's survey demonstrates conclusively that government has been inefficient in its funding capacity and that the shortcomings are inherent: political criteria for the support of science, congressional micromanagement, freezing out of innovative ideas, and the favoring of massive projects-Big Science-over small, but significant experimental programs. In his concluding chapter Martino provides an agenda for new thinking on the funding of science. He proposes alternatives that suggest a plurality of approaches is preferable to the current monolithic model, and shows how industrial support, philanthropy, and contributions from the public can be made more effective. Science Funding is a major work on the interaction of science, politics, and society. It will be of interest to sociologists, policymakers, and political scientist, and the research science community.

The Dutch National Research Agenda is a set of national priorities that are set by scientists working in conjunction with corporations, civil society organisations, and interested citizens. The agenda consolidates the questions that scientific research will be focused on in the coming year. This book covers the current status of the Dutch National Research Agenda and considers what changes and adjustments may need to be made to the process in order to keep Dutch national research at the top of the pack.

Climate change makes fossil fuels unburnable, yet global coal production has almost doubled over the last 20 years. This book explores how the world can stop mining coal - the most prolific source of greenhouse gas emissions. It documents efforts at halting coal production, focusing specifically on how campaigners are trying to stop coal mining in India, Germany, and Australia. Through in-depth comparative ethnography, it shows how local people are fighting to save their homes, livelihoods, and environments, creating new constituencies and alliances for the transition from fossil fuels. The book relates these struggles to conflicts between global climate policy and the national coal-industrial complex. With coal's meaning transformed from an important asset to a threat, and the coal industry declining, it charts reasons for continuing coal dependence, and how this can be overcome. It will provide a source of inspiration for energy transition for researchers in environment, sustainability, and politics, as well as policymakers.

Examining the thematic intersection of law, technology and violence, this book explores cyber attacks against states and current international law on the use of force. The theory of information ethics is used to critique the law's conception of violence and to develop an informational approach as an alternative way to think about cyber attacks. Cyber attacks against states constitute a new form of violence in the information age, and international law on the use of force is limited in its capacity to regulate them. This book draws on Luciano Floridi's theory of information ethics to critique the narrow conception of violence embodied in the law and to develop an alternative way to think about cyber attacks, violence, and the state. The author uses three case studies - the 2007 cyber attacks against Estonia, the Stuxnet incident involving Iran that was discovered in 2010, and the cyber attacks used as part of the Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election - to demonstrate that an informational approach offers a means to reimagine the state as an entity and cyber attacks as a form of violence against it. This interdisciplinary approach will appeal to an international audience of scholars in international law, international relations, security studies, cyber security, and anyone interested in the issues surrounding emerging technologies.

In Longshot, investigative journalist David Heath takes readers inside the small group of scientists whose groundbreaking work was once largely dismissed but whose feat will now eclipse the importance of Jonas Salk's polio vaccine in medical history. With never-before-reported details, Heath reveals how these scientists overcame countless obstacles to give the world an unprecedented head start when we needed a COVID-19 vaccine. The story really begins in the 1990s, with a series of discoveries that were timed perfectly to prepare us for the worst pandemic since 1918. Readers will meet Katalin Kariko, who made it possible to use messenger RNA in vaccines but struggled for years just to hang on to her job. There's also Derrick Rossi, who leveraged Kariko's work to found Moderna but was eventually expelled from his company. And then there's Barney Graham at the National Institutes of Health, who had a career-long obsession with solving the riddle of why two toddlers died in a vaccine trial in 1966, a tragedy that ultimately led to a critical breakthrough in vaccine science. With both foresight and luck, Graham and these other crucial scientists set the course for a coronavirus vaccine years before COVID-19 emerged in Wuhan, China. The author draws on hundreds of hours of interviews with key players to tell the definitive story about how the race to create the vaccine sparked a revolution in medical science.

Multiple New York Times best-selling author Dr. Joseph Mercola and Ronnie Cummins, founder and director of the Organic Consumers Association, team up to expose the truth-and end the madness-about COVID-19. Since early 2020, the world has experienced a series of catastrophic events-a global pandemic caused by what appears to be an engineered coronavirus; international lockdowns and border closings causing widespread business closures, economic collapse, and massive unemployment; and an unprecedented curtailment of civil liberties and freedoms in the name of keeping people safe by locking them up in their homes. We are now living in a world that is increasingly ruled, not by our democratic systems and institutions, but by public health fiat, carried out by politicians who rule by instilling fear and panic. In The Truth About COVID-19, Dr. Mercola and Cummins reveal new and emerging evidence that: The SARS-CoV-2 virus was, indeed, lab-engineered and emerged from a negligently managed bioweapons lab in Wuhan, China The global pandemic was long anticipated by global elites who have used it to facilitate and hide the largest upward transfer of wealth in human history PCR testing, case counts, morbidity, and vaccine safety and efficacy data have been widely manipulated and misrepresented Obesity, diabetes, and heart disease are known to worsen COVID-19 outcomes, but the junk food industry continues to push its agenda at the expense of public health Safe, simple, and inexpensive treatment and prevention for COVID-19 have been censored and suppressed to create a clear path for vaccine acceptance Effectiveness of the vaccines has been wildly exaggerated and major safety questions have gone unanswered The good news in all of this is that we can take control of our health and that, together, we have the power to unite and fight back for our health, democracy, and freedom. The time is now for a global awakening. As Dr. Mercola and Cummins remind us, this is the fight of our lives.

"Made me look at the industrial revolution, invention, sleeping beauties, contexts and the forces that shape our societies differently."—David Byrne, New York Times Book Review How the history of technological revolutions can help us better understand economic and political polarization in the age of automation From the Industrial Revolution to the age of artificial intelligence, The Technology Trap takes a sweeping look at the history of technological progress and how it has radically shifted the distribution of economic and political power among society’s members. As Carl Benedikt Frey shows, the Industrial Revolution created unprecedented wealth and prosperity over the long run, but the immediate consequences of mechanization were devastating for large swaths of the population. Middle-income jobs withered, wages stagnated, the labor share of income fell, profits surged, and economic inequality skyrocketed. These trends, Frey documents, broadly mirror those in our current age of automation, which began with the Computer Revolution. Just as the Industrial Revolution eventually brought about extraordinary benefits for society, artificial intelligence systems have the potential to do the same. But Frey argues that this depends on how the short term is managed. In the nineteenth century, workers violently expressed their concerns over machines taking their jobs. The Luddite uprisings joined a long wave of machinery riots that swept across Europe and China. Today’s despairing middle class has not resorted to physical force, but their frustration has led to rising populism and the increasing fragmentation of society. As middle-class jobs continue to come under pressure, there’s no assurance that positive attitudes to technology will persist. The Industrial Revolution was a defining moment in history, but few grasped its enormous consequences at the time. The Technology Trap demonstrates that in the midst of another technological revolution, the lessons of the past can help us to more effectively face the present.

Fifty years into the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) regime, the risks of nuclear war, terrorism, and the threat of further proliferation remain. A lack of significant progress towards disarmament will cast doubt upon the viability of the NPT. By recognizing that certain fissile materials are essential to every nuclear weapon and that controlling their usage provides the foundation for international efforts to limit their spread, this book presents a comprehensive framework for nuclear disarmament. Based upon phased reductions, Shea provides a mechanism for the disposal of weapon-origin fissile material and controls on peaceful nuclear activities and non-explosive military uses. He explores the technological means for monitoring and verification, the legal arrangements required to provide an enduring foundation, and a financial structure which will enable progress. This book will be invaluable to professional organizations, arms control NGOs, government officials, scientists, and politicians. It will also appeal to academics and postgraduate researchers working on security studies, disarmament diplomacy and the politics and science of verification.

This book addresses questions surrounding the feasibility of a global approach to ethical governance of science and technology. The emergence and rapid spread of nanotechnology offers a test case for how the world might act when confronted with a technology that could transform the global economy and provide solutions to issues such as pollution, while potentially creating new environmental and health risks. The author compares ethical issues identified by stakeholders in China and the EU about the rapid introduction of this potentially transformative technology – a fitting framework for an exploration of global agency. The study explores the discourse ethics and participatory Technology Assessment (pTA) inspired by the work of Jürgen Habermas to argue that different views can be universally recognized and agreed upon, perhaps within an ideal global community of communication. The book offers a developed discourse model, utilizing virtue ethics as well as the work of Taylor, Beck, Korsgaard and others on identity formation, as a way forward in the context of global ethics. The author seeks to develop new vocabularies of comparison, to discover shared aspects of identity and to achieve, hopefully, an ‘intercultural personhood’ that may lead to a global ethics. The book offers a useful guide for researchers on methods for advancing societal understanding of science and technology. The author addresses a broad audience, from philosophers, ethicists and scientists, to the interested general reader. For the layperson, one chapter surveys nanoissues as depicted in fiction and another offers a view of how an ordinary citizen can act as a global agent of change in ethics.

"Surging sea levels are inundating the coasts." "Hurricanes and tornadoes are becoming fiercer and more frequent." "Climate change will be an economic disaster." You've heard all this presented as fact. But according to science, all of these statements are profoundly misleading. When it comes to climate change, the media, politicians, and other prominent voices have declared that "the science is settled." In reality, the long game of telephone from research to reports to the popular media is corrupted by misunderstanding and misinformation. Core questions-about the way the climate is responding to our influence, and what the impacts will be-remain largely unanswered. The climate is changing, but the why and how aren't as clear as you've probably been led to believe. Now, one of America's most distinguished scientists is clearing away the fog to explain what science really says (and doesn't say) about our changing climate. In Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters, Steven Koonin draws upon his decades of experience-including as a top science advisor to the Obama administration-to provide up-to-date insights and expert perspective free from political agendas. Fascinating, clear-headed, and full of surprises, this book gives readers the tools to both understand the climate issue and be savvier consumers of science media in general. Koonin takes readers behind the headlines to the more nuanced science itself, showing us where it comes from and guiding us through the implications of the evidence. He dispels popular myths and unveils little-known truths: despite a dramatic rise in greenhouse gas emissions, global temperatures actually decreased from 1940 to 1970. What's more, the models we use to predict the future aren't able to accurately describe the climate of the past, suggesting they are deeply flawed. Koonin also tackles society's response to a changing climate, using data-driven analysis to explain why many proposed "solutions" would be ineffective, and discussing how alternatives like adaptation and, if necessary, geoengineering will ensure humanity continues to prosper. Unsettled is a reality check buoyed by hope, offering the truth about climate science that you aren't getting elsewhere-what we know, what we don't, and what it all means for our future.

Public policy analysts and political pundits alike tend to describe the policymaking process as a reactive sequence in which government develops solutions for clearly evident and identifiable problems. While this depiction holds true in many cases, it fails to account for instances in which public policy is enacted in anticipation of a potential future problem. Whereas traditional policy concerns manifest themselves through ongoing harms, "anticipatory problems" are projected to occur sometime in the future, and it is the prospect of their potentially catastrophic impact that generates intense speculation and concern in the present. Anticipatory Policymaking: When Government Acts to Prevent Problems and Why It Is So Difficult provides an in depth examination of the complex process through which United States government institutions anticipate emerging threats. Using contemporary debates over the risks associated with nanotechnology, pandemic influenza, and global warming as case study material, Rob A. DeLeo highlights the distinctive features of proactive governance. By challenging the pervasive assumption of reactive policymaking, DeLeo provides a dynamic approach for conceptualizing the political dimensions of anticipatory policy change.

The present volume elucidates the scope of responsibility in science and technology governance by way of assimilating insights gleaned from sociological theory and STS and by investigating the ways in which responsibility unfolds in social processes. Drawing on these theoretical perspectives, the volume goes on to review a 'heuristic model' of responsibility. Such a model provides a simple, tentative, though no less coherent analytical framework for further examining the idea of responsibility, its transformations, configurations and contradictions.

Research in Medical and Biological Sciences covers the wide range of topics that a researcher must be familiar with in order to become a successful biomedical scientist. Perfect for aspiring as well as practicing professionals in the medical and biological sciences, this publication discusses a broad range of topics that are common yet not traditionally considered part of formal curricula, including philosophy of science, ethics, statistics, and grant applications. The information presented in this book also facilitates communication across conventional disciplinary boundaries, in line with the increasingly multidisciplinary nature of modern research projects.

The book describes and analyses the new environment for innovation, it does this with an emphasis on yet uncharted regions within the field of practice-based innovation, coming up with guidelines for innovation policy measures needed in order to realise this. While it focuses on these policies it also takes into account multi-actor innovation processes, user-driven innovation, "related variety" and many other aspects; aspects such as, just to name a few: communicating creative processes and distributing practice-based innovation; then there is creativity itself, encompassing new fields of knowledge and expertise. The authors go on to describe value networks, showing how to make practice-based innovations, explaining innovation diffusion and absorptive capacity. The book presents new insights as well as the latest research related to the frequently used term "innovation". Definitions are put forward, giving, by way of examples, a detailed description of concepts we draw upon when using these. Innovation as a concept is constantly being subdivided into increasingly finer distinctions, which, in turn, determine the discourse. The book takes a close look at these, further taking into account the challenges as well as the opportunities inherent in developing practice-based innovation procedures and policies of global importance, never losing sight of advancing long-term effectiveness.

At a time when scientific and technical innovation now requires a multitude of heterogeneous inputs and expertise from the public and private sectors alike, cooperative research centers (CRCs) have emerged as the predominant vehicle for cross-sector collaboration. In the U.S. alone, there are thousands of CRCs on university campuses, and agencies like the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, and more recently the Department of Energy fund CRCs to address some of the nation's most formidable challenges with science and technology, including cancer and other diseases, terrorism surveillance and the detection of weapons of mass destruction, and new energy technologies and smart energy grid development. Industry oftentimes participates in CRCs for access to knowledge, capacity development, and to mitigate risk. This volume includes research investigating CRCs from North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia to explore the dynamics of CRCs, including but not limited to resource allocation, structure, level of sponsorship, organization and membership, management and operations, objectives and goals, and in doing so identifies both differences and similarities across institutional and national contexts. The volume sheds light on the role of CRCs in promoting innovation, S&T policy, and economic development, and on the practical aspects of successful CRC management. Moreover, the works included in the volume consider the implications for the various stakeholder groups (firms, universities, researchers, students, policymakers) invested in CRCs.

Economic policy debates have devoted increasing attention to the design and implementation of policies to aid the growth of high-technology firms and industries. In the United States this focus on `technology policy' has been influenced by similar debates and policy experiments in other industrial economies, notably Japan and Western Europe. The domestic U.S. debate over support for technology development and national competitiveness has been hampered by two major conceptual flaws -- the demand for immediate economic results from basic research and considering national technology policies independent of developments in the international economy. This volume addresses these deficiencies in the analysis of technology policy by examining a number of issues faced by managers and public officials in industrial and industrializing economies that are now linked closely through international flows of goods, capital, and technology. The book lays out an analytical framework for the study of national policies towards technology and science. In addition, the book addresses the complex issues raised by interdependence among the public and private institutions governing the creation, commercialization, and adoption of new technology in different national economies. Finally, the book reviews the development of two global high-technology industries: aerospace and semiconductor components.

Dreaming of a successful future in science? This practical guide for students, postdocs and professors offers a unique step-by-step approach to help you get the funding to start or consolidate your own research career. From preparing and writing effective career grant applications, to understanding how funding agencies will evaluate them, it provides guidance to enhance your skills and combine them with those of others who can support you on the road to success. Learn how to generate great original ideas for your application, strategically prepare and optimise your plan and resume, develop a convincing title and abstract, convert reviewers' comments to your advantage, and succeed at a selection interview. With numerous valuable tips, real-life stories and novel practical exercises, this must-read guide provides everything you need to optimise your funding opportunities and take responsibility for your own career in science.