CIPAST workshop

The workshop organized by the CIPAST consortium started at the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum (Dresden) on Monday 26th June at 12:00 a.m. and ended Wednesday 28th June at 4:00 p.m.

Main issue: citizen participation in science and technology: “How to design and organize public deliberation for science and technology”

General Content

1. Introduction to citizen participation

Metaplan on issues and relevance when considering citizen participation.

2. Planning citizen participation

How to get started? Identifying an appropriate methodology.

3. Successful project management

How to achieve results? The ethics of good management.

4. Using results

How to maximise dissemination and achieve impact?

5. Evaluation

Output, outcome, impact: what and how to evaluate?

6. “Do it yourself” session

7. Reflexive session

Possible drawbacks. What to learn from citizen participation experience? How to provide training?

Case studies

1. UK NanoJury, a citizens’ jury on nanotechnology

2. French interactive assessment of ‘GM Vine Research’

3. Danish local scenario workshops on ‘Ocean Rise’

Public events

Invited lecture on Citizens’ Science on Monday evening.Prof. Peter Weingart, University of Bielefeld

‘Meeting of Minds, European Citizens Deliberation on Brain Science: Is participation possible on a European scale?’ on Tuesday evening.

Presentations and panel discussion of a pilot project with 126 citi­zens from 9 countries. With Philippe Galiay, Science and Society Directorate, DG Research, European Commission, Gerrit Rauws, Director, King Baudouin Foundation, Bruxelles, Marie-Agnès Ber­nardis, Cité des Sciences et de l‘Industrie, Paris

Young People’s Parliament

The Portuguese Parliament has organised since 1995 yearly sessions of the 'Young People's Parliament' (O Parlamento dos Jovens), with the main aims of showing young people the values and practice of democracy and to further citizenship education. It is also part of our project aims to engage students in discussing legislative decisions on scientific and technical issues, in a similar process of reproducing parliamentary processes. We are seeking the possibility of direct collaboration with this sucessful parliamentary initiative.

The last sessions of this initiative, held in May 2006, had as themes 'Portuguese Language' (secondary level schools) and 'Education and Citizenship for Road Security' (2nd and 3rd cycle of basic schooling). Following Resolution no. 42/2006 approved by the Parliament on 11 May, a single session for secondary level schools will be organised each year. The programme of the 2007 sessions for both levels will be posted on 11 September at the Parliament's website.

Ciência Viva Summer Courses 2006

The courses will take place at the Center for Social Studies (from July 17th until the 21st) 

Launched in June 1996, the Ciência Viva programme is the contribution of the Ministry of Science and Technology to the promotion of a scientific and technological culture among the Portuguese population.

Greetings to all the members at www.scienceparliament.com!

At this very moment I'm writing a paper concerning our project’s aims.But instead of doing my fiercest work engaging in specific issues, like participatory models or technology assessment, I’m focusing more on general ideas (and that may constitute a problem) but it could lead us instead to a better understanding of the dialogue.  

And that’s why, taking Baudrillard’s idea of simulacra, I’m discussing the particular way he conceives the vanishing of aims in science and the fading away in intention, or even utopia, for politics. 

We have a parallel meltdown of the scale of social significance in both areas and I think it would be profitable to direct more attention towards this question.  

In the case of science, where there was once a dominant speech, now exists a fractured discourse often superimposed by new levels of understanding. But can they be politically significant? In political terms, can “agonistic space” (Latour and Lyotard) effectively supply democracy? How can we discuss the idiosyncrasy of leadership in both areas?  

With these questions being a reference to this work, I would like to explore the idea of participatory models in the case of science and policy. 

Do you have any remarks on the subject?   

Introduction

Hi!

This is the blog of the research project "Science in parliament: a study of the boundary between science and policy", being developed at the Centre for Social Studies (CES) of the University of Coimbra, and funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology, Portugal.

This blog will be used mainly as a repository of information and views related to the theme of the project, also as an additional communication tool between its research team, composed of:

Tiago Santos Pereira (Principal Investigator)
Ana Correia Moutinho
António Farinhas Rodrigues
João Arriscado Nunes
Maria Eduarda Gonçalves

The objective of this project is to analyse the modes of use of scientific and technical knowledge and expertise in the Portuguese Parliament over the last 30 years.

The main aims of the study are threefold:
- describing and mapping (through the construction of a specific database) the interactions between science and politics across policy areas, with reference to the distinction between ‘policy for science’ and ‘science in policy’;
- analysing modes of access to and use of scientific and technical expertise, through specific case studies;
- and reflecting upon these, in light of international experiences, on the co-production of science and politics in Portugal.

The team attributes particular importance to the dissemination of the results, both to academics and the wider public.

These aims will be reached through the following tasks:

Task 1 - Documental analysis of parliamentary activicty and construction of a searchable database (December 2006)
Task 2 – Case studies on the use of S&T knowledge in parliamentary activicty (December 2006)
Task 3 – Synthesis of results, policy workshop and writing of a final report (June 2007)
Task 4 – Activities with school studentes and other dissemination activities (June 2007)

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