Sciencewise is a UK organization funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills that helps the government engage the public on science and technology policy issues. The webinar summarized research from Sciencewise on best practices for public engagement, including when to engage the public in the policy process, how new digital technologies can support engagement, which publics to engage, and overcoming barriers to engagement. The webinar provided examples from past Sciencewise projects and highlighted key lessons about conceptualizing the public and ensuring inclusion of different perspectives.

1. Sciencewise Webinar
The best of Sciencewise’s reseach
Monday 8 September 2014

2. Sciencewise
 Funded by the Department for Business
Innovation and Skills (BIS)
 Helps the government engage with the
public on policy issues involving science
and technology – particularly on complex
and controversial topics.
To help improve
policy-making in
science and
technology through
the use of public
dialogue and
engagement
www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk 2

3. Sciencewise
Sciencewise can help you with:
1. Information and guidance
2. Social Intelligence & Research
3. Training and Mentoring
4. Dialogue Specialists
5. Project funding and support
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4. What is public dialogue?
Public dialogue allows a diverse mix of public participants with
a range of views and values to deliberate, reflect and come
conclusions on national policy issues. It places particular
emphasis on being:
• Informed: Participants are provided with information and
access to experts;
• Two-way: Participants, policy makers and experts all give
something to and take something away from the process;
dialogue is neither solely about informing the public nor
about extracting information from them;
• Facilitated: The process is carefully structured to ensure
that participants receive the right amount and detail of
information, a diverse range of views is heard and taken into
account, and discussion is not dominated by particular
individuals or issues; www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk 4

5. What is public dialogue?
• Deliberative: Participants develop their views on an issue
through conversation with other participants, policy makers
and experts;
• Diverse: Participants tend to be recruited to ensure they
represent a diverse range of backgrounds and views
(participants are not self-selecting);
• Purposeful: Dialogue engages the public at a stage in the
policy making process where the policy can still be affected;
• Impartial: Public dialogues are often convened, designed,
delivered and facilitated by independent individuals or
organisations to help ensure the process is not biased in
favour of a particular outcome; and
• Expansive: Public dialogue opens up conversations rather
than closing them down.
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6. The best of Sciencewise
• Celebrating 10 years of Sciencewise
• Bringing together the ‘best bits’ from over 20 thought
leadership and research papers
• Full report available here: http://www.sciencewise-erc.
org.uk/cms/assets/Uploads/Best-ofFINAL.pdf
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7. Amy Pollard, Sonia Bussu & Houda Davis
Sciencewise team
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8. Alison Mohr
Lecturer in Science and Technology
Studies, University of Nottingham
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9. www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk
Our Audience today:
Over 40 participants
1.Central and devolved government
2.Research councils and public
bodies
3. Universities and academia
4. Related organisations
5.Members of the public
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10. www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk
Webinar features
You can:
• Ask a question
• Hold up your hand (for technical
problems)
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11. Cities Webinar – Prepare your city for extreme weather events
How to submit your questions
during the webinar
If your panel is minimised,
click the orange button to
expand it.
Attendee control panel
Expands Welcome to the Webinar
into the
control
panel
Cities Webinar
Raise
hand for
technical
issues
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12. Content
• Engaging the public: Why, When, How and Who should we
engage?
• When: a Departmental Dialogue Index
• How: Digital Engagement. How might new technologies support
public engagement?
• Who: Which Publics?
• Overcoming barriers
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13. Why Engage?
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14. When, How, Who?
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15. When? A Departmental Dialogue Index
Colbourne (2010)
The DDI can help departments, agencies and other public sector
organisations
• to understand their propensity to engage with the public
• to identify best approaches
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16. Matching policy and decision-making
context to type of engagement
• Type A decisions: Requiring narrow engagement
low conflict, controversy or uncertainty
• Type B decisions: Requiring moderate engagement
not huge controversy but need for buy-in/understanding
• Type C decisions: Requiring extensive engagement
high conflict, controversy and uncertainty
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17. How? The role of New technologies in
supporting dialogue
Latta et al (2013)
• New technology as an opportunity to open up discussion on
policy.
• ‘Goldfish bowl’ deliberation allows those outside to watch,
while maintaining privacy and focus of dialogue
Key lessons/issues:
• Matching purpose to appropriate tools
• Ability to tap into existing networks
• Flexibility of digital technologies
• Issue of Digital Exclusion
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18. How GM Nation? challenged the way we
think about ‘the public’
• Is the purpose of public dialogue to study rather engage
public opinion on wicked policy problems?
• Is majority opinion sufficient to sustain the legitimacy of
policy decisions?
• Can the idea of a diffuse, general public with fixed, pre-given,
‘neutral’ views and preferences sustain good
policy where issues are complex and still emerging?
• If not, how then should we think about the public?
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19. Campaigning publics
• Make themselves known at some point and in some space(s)
around the issue in question
• But, may not always be visible to policy makers – depending
on size, access, contacts (e.g., Greenpeace vs. No Leith
Biomass)
• Put forward particular visions of the public and the public
interest
• Raise new questions and bring in forms of knowledge not
previously considered
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20. Civil society publics
• Organised and active in different spaces, but not around the
issue in question
• Vary in size, access, visibility
• E.g., Women’s Institute vs. Mumsnet vs. ‘low profile’ or
‘obscure’ groups
• Potential to engage around the big policy issues that we
have to collectively confront
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21. Latent publics
• Hard-to-reach, disenfranchised
• Democratic imperative of reaching out to them to meet the
criterion of inclusivity
• May be characterised as ‘disengaged’
• But, may well be articulate about their priorities
• Cannot be predicted in advance of the process of dialogue
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22. Who?
Which publics?
Mohr, Raman and Gibbs 2013
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23. Lessons from GM Nation?
• Even the ‘narrow-but-deep’ focus groups with apparently latent
participants did not produce the purely ‘disinterested citizen’
voice imagined by the sponsors
• Ostensibly neutral public were transformed via their engagement
to become engaged, interested and mobilised publics
• Stimulated a wide range of inputs (incl. from campaigning and
civil society publics) that challenged the narrow framing to
consider the broader social and political questions about the
underlying commitments of science, industry and government
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24. Overcoming barriers
• Greater cross-sector cooperation and working beyond internal silos
• Moving from one-off projects to a continuous process
mainstreamed in the policy cycle
• Multiple forms of communication and different but connected
platforms, on and offline
• Promoting universal access and familiarity with the internet
• Adequate resources
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25. www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk
Q&A
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26. www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk
Contact us
Sciencewise Website
www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk
Sciencewise Helpline
01235 753 645
Alison.Mohr@nottingham.ac.uk
Amy.Pollard@sciencewise.org.uk
Houda.Davis@sciencewise.org.uk
Sonia.Bussu@sciencewise.org.uk
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alison.mohr@nottingham.ac.uk