Science Policy Makers Research Articles

Democrats and Republicans choose solar panels in very similar ways.

Appealing to individuals' social identity is a powerful form of social influence, capable of changing the way people process information, the information they think about, and how they evaluate other individuals. The purpose of this study is to explore the idea that Democrat and Republican environmental norms may impact the attributes and strategies partisans use when choosing whether to have solar panels on a house. An online study with N = 363 participants was conducted to examine these possible effects through multi-attribute decision making, applying predefined decision process models to participant behavior to test which attribute-based models best describe participants' decision making. A choice task was combined with an experimental manipulation of political affiliation salience to examine whether the norms of political groups would have influence on decision behavior. Results of the study show remarkable similarities between political parties in their strategies for choosing solar panels. Members of both political parties appeared to use similar strategies and similar attributes for the formation of their decisions. Recommendations are made that science communicators and policy makers avoid polarizing language so as not to create unnecessary polarization where ideological gaps may not currently exist.

Scientific expertise and public engagement in science policy: A conversation with Dr. Alondra Nelson

MIT Science Policy Review spoke with Dr. Alondra Nelson about the role of scientists and the broader public in shaping policy. Dr. Nelson is the Harold F. Linder Professor in the School of Social Science at the Institute of Advanced Study, an independent research center in Princeton, New Jersey, and is the author of multiple works about the intersections of science, technology, medicine, and inequality, including Body and Soul (2011) and The Social Life of DNA (2016). She previously served as Deputy Assistant to President Joe Biden and acting director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). As a distinguished senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, she has advised at various levels of government and civil society on science-related issues. Dr. Nelson’s unique perspective as a sociologist sheds light on the importance of public participation in policy development, both as a democratic process, and to ensure that scientific and technological progress benefits society. In our conversation, we discussed some of the challenges of science policymaking, strategies to enhance public involvement in policy, and the fundamental value of providing broad public access to science and scientific education.

Reconstructing long-term (1980–2022) daily ground particulate matter concentrations in India (LongPMInd)

Abstract. Severe airborne particulate matter (PM, including PM2.5 and PM10) pollution in India has caused widespread concern. Accurate PM concentrations are fundamental for scientific policymaking and health impact assessment, while surface observations in India are limited due to scarce sites and uneven distribution. In this work, a simple structured, efficient, and robust model based on the Light Gradient-Boosting Machine (LightGBM) was developed to fuse multisource data and estimate long-term (1980–2022) historical daily ground PM concentrations in India (LongPMInd). The LightGBM model shows good accuracy with out-of-sample, out-of-site, and out-of-year cross-validation (CV) test R2 values of 0.77, 0.70, and 0.66, respectively. Small performance gaps between PM2.5 training and testing (delta RMSE of 1.06, 3.83, and 7.74 µg m−3) indicate low overfitting risks. With great generalization ability, the openly accessible, long-term, and high-quality daily PM2.5 and PM10 products were then reconstructed (10 km, 1980–2022). This showed that India has experienced severe PM pollution in the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP), especially in winter. PM concentrations have significantly increased (p<0.05) in most regions since 2000 (0.34 µgm-3yr-1). The turning point occurred in 2018 when the Indian government launched the National Clean Air Programme, and PM2.5 concentrations declined in most regions (−0.78 µgm-3yr-1) during 2018–2022. Severe PM2.5 pollution caused continuous increased attributable premature mortalities, from 0.73 (95 % confidence interval (CI) [0.65, 0.80]) million in 2000 to 1.22 (95 % CI [1.03, 1.41]) million in 2019, particularly in the IGP, where attributable mortality increased from 0.36 million to 0.60 million. LongPMInd has the potential to support multiple applications of air quality management, public health initiatives, and efforts to address climate change. The daily and monthly PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations are publicly accessible at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10073944 (Wang et al., 2023a).

Quantitative Changes in the Publishing of Lithuanian Scientific Journals in 2015–2022: Public and Private Sectors’ Adaptation to the Changing Conditions

The article analyses the quantitative changes in the Lithuanian scientific journal publishing in 2015-2022. The study reveals the problems of public bibliographic accounting and terminology in order to comprehensively analyse the public and private sector published print and electronic scientific journals. The gaps and uncertainties identified allow for the improvement of official publication records in the future, avoiding ambiguities in the assessment of the publication volumes of scientific journals. Science policy makers and implementers should take the initiative to standardise the definition of scientific journals, as this is the only way to achieve a clearer approach to this form of science communication. Although the annual volume of scientific journal publications has shrunk by 18.1% (from 265 (2015) to 217 (2022) publications), the decline itself has not been sharp. The decline has been stabilised by business involvement, changes in the evaluation of colleges, and the transformation of professional journals, book series and conference proceedings into scientific journals. Flexibility has been provided by electronic publishing instruments, which have reduced the dependence on external financial sources. The public publishing sector has tended to reduce the number of scientific journals in all scientific fields. This was mainly due to the reorganisation of the higher education network, the qualitative requirements for scientific articles and the reorganisation of scientific collectives. The publishing business has seen the greatest potential in the fields of technology and the medical and health sciences, and as a result, the number of journals published in these fields has not declined and continues to grow. Despite the private sector's growth trends, 50% of journals have 30 or more years of publication. This forms the core of Lithuanian scientific journals, which public sector publishers are striving to preserve and integrate into the international scientific environment.

Perspectives of researchers, science policy makers and research ethics committee members on the feedback of individual genetic research findings in African genomics research

BackgroundGenetic research can yield information that is unrelated to the study’s objectives but may be of clinical or personal interest to study participants. There is an emerging but controversial responsibility to return some genetic research results, however there is little evidence available about the views of genomic researchers and others on the African continent.MethodsWe conducted a continental survey to solicit perspectives of researchers, science policy makers and research ethics committee members on the feedback of individual genetic research findings in African genomics research.ResultsA total of 110 persons participated in the survey with 51 complete and 59 incomplete surveys received. Data was summarised using descriptive analysis. Overall, our respondents believed that individual genetic research results that are clinically actionable should be returned to study participants apparently because participants have a right to know things about their health, and it might also be a means for research participation to be recognized. Nonetheless, there is a need for development of precise guidance on how to return individual genetic research findings in African genomics research.DiscussionParticipants should receive information that could promote a healthier lifestyle; only clinically actionable findings should be returned, and participants should receive all important information that is directly relevant to their health. Nevertheless, detailed guidelines should inform what ought to be returned. H3Africa guidelines stipulate that it is generally considered good practice for researchers to feedback general study results, but there is no consensus about whether individual genomic study results should also be fed back. The decision on what individual results to feedback, if any, is very challenging and the specific context is important to make an appropriate determination.

Childhood Obesity and Its Comorbidities in High-Risk Minority Populations: Prevalence, Prevention and Lifestyle Intervention Guidelines.

The prevalence of childhood obesity and its associated comorbidities is a growing global health problem that disproportionately affects populations in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and minority ethnicities in high-income countries (HICs). The increased childhood obesity disparities among populations reflect two concerns: one is HICs' ineffective intervention approaches in terms of lifestyle, nutrition and physical activity in minority populations, and the second is the virtually non-existent lifestyle obesity interventions in LMICs. This article provides guidelines on childhood obesity and its comorbidities in high-risk minority populations based on understanding the prevalence and effectiveness of preventative lifestyle interventions. First, we highlight how inadequate obesity screening by body mass index (BMI) can be resolved by using objective adiposity fat percentage measurements alongside anthropometric and physiological components, including lean tissue and bone density. National healthcare childhood obesity prevention initiatives should embed obesity cut-off points for minority ethnicities, especially Asian and South Asian ethnicities within UK and USA populations, whose obesity-related metabolic risks are often underestimated. Secondly, lifestyle interventions are underutilised in children and adolescents with obesity and its comorbidities, especially in minority ethnicity population groups. The overwhelming evidence on lifestyle interventions involving children with obesity comorbidities from ethnic minority populations shows that personalised physical activity and nutrition interventions are successful in reversing obesity and its secondary cardiometabolic disease risks, including those related to cardiorespiratory capacity, blood pressure and glucose/insulin levels. Interventions combining cultural contextualisation and better engagement with families are the most effective in high-risk paediatric minority populations but are non-uniform amongst different minority communities. A sustained preventative health impact can be achieved through the involvement of the community, with stakeholders comprising healthcare professionals, nutritionists, exercise science specialists and policy makers. Our guidelines for obesity assessment and primary and secondary prevention of childhood obesity and associated comorbidities in minority populations are fundamental to reducing global and local health disparities and improving quality of life.

The soft underbelly of complexity science adoption in policymaking: towards addressing frequently overlooked non-technical challenges

The deepening integration of social-technical systems creates immensely complex environments, creating increasingly uncertain and unpredictable circumstances. Given this context, policymakers have been encouraged to draw on complexity science-informed approaches in policymaking to help grapple with and manage the mounting complexity of the world. For nearly eighty years, complexity-informed approaches have been promising to change how our complex systems are understood and managed, ultimately assisting in better policymaking. Despite the potential of complexity science, in practice, its use often remains limited to a few specialised domains and has not become part and parcel of the mainstream policy debate. To understand why this might be the case, we question why complexity science remains nascent and not integrated into the core of policymaking. Specifically, we ask what the non-technical challenges and barriers are preventing the adoption of complexity science into policymaking. To address this question, we conducted an extensive literature review. We collected the scattered fragments of text that discussed the non-technical challenges related to the use of complexity science in policymaking and stitched these fragments into a structured framework by synthesising our findings. Our framework consists of three thematic groupings of the non-technical challenges: (a) management, cost, and adoption challenges; (b) limited trust, communication, and acceptance; and (c) ethical barriers. For each broad challenge identified, we propose a mitigation strategy to facilitate the adoption of complexity science into policymaking. We conclude with a call for action to integrate complexity science into policymaking further.

A scientometrics-based journal Management framework: A strategic move

Managing a scientific journal is a critical and challenging service for academics and practitioners. There must be a way for journal editors to gain a clear picture of their publication's performance and gain insight into how they can make improvements to expand the journal's impact. Knowing the journal's performance and its leading contribution to a particular field can be useful for journal managers readers, authors, and science policymakers. This article presents a management framework informed by scientometrics and bibliometrics as a science that uses statistical techniques to analyze information distribution models, to help journals contribute more to the field by optimum engagement of editorial knowledge and expertise and expanding the boundaries of what is known. We examined one prominent journal as a case study in this paper. The outcomes are used to assess the feasibility of the proposed framework. The top contributions of the case journal are identified systematically, and strategies for potential growth are proposed accordingly. Based on the findings, this study not only provides an overview of the benefits of scientometrics-based journal management but also provides recommendations to strengthen the journal's impact on the field as a contribution to practice. As a result, this article is intended to benefit publishers, journal editors, readers, and policymakers.

CHALLENGES WITH THE TRANSITION TO A RESEARCH-BASED ECONOMY IN KAZAKHSTAN

This study offers several qualitative and mixed approaches to explore the challenges with the transition to a research-based economy in Kazakhstan. Some findings have been drawn from a doctoral study of science policymaking in Kazakhstan focusing on experts’ involvement in agenda setting.
 According to the results of this study, despite the significant structural transformation and numerous economic development strategies, the economy of Kazakhstan remains dependent on extractive industries. It is mainly because the structure of the economy of Kazakhstan is more export-oriented than service-based. The macroeconomic situation is characterized by an unpredictable business environment.
 The findings of this research highlight that the business sector is not interested in R&D activities and relies most on accelerated foreign technologies. The Kazakh Government likely needs to facilitate specific subsidies and tax preferences for business enterprises involved in research and development activities. This kind of state support may encourage business representatives to invest more in scientific activities that could help the country move smoothly to a research-based economy.

Left out of the Room Where it Happens: Barriers to Serving in Senior Congressional Staff Roles May Limit “Representative” Science Policymaking

Policymakers are expected to represent the constituents of their districts and states. Given that the individual life histories and experiences of congressional staffers may influence their attitudes and decisions, it is crucial to understand more about the people serving in these roles, their diversity, and which communities are and are not well-represented. By conducting interviews with twenty-six current and former senior legislative staffers in the United States House of Representatives and Senate involved in drafting science policy, this study examines challenges to acquiring and maintaining key positions in scientific policymaking at the federal level. The results shed light on why some individuals have an unequal advantage to obtain senior staff roles while others struggle to stay in Congress long enough to achieve elite legislative positions. They also suggest that a lack of opportunities for already marginalized communities may lead to inadequate representation in decision-making, especially on science policy issues related to justice and equity. Ultimately, this article makes policy recommendations to foster greater diversity in senior staff roles and to bring the perspectives of more Americans into the science policy decision-making process.

COVID-19 Impacts on Human Security in Bangladesh

COVID-19 has been a challenge for the human being in this century. It has created serious human security threats in this world. Due to lack of medical infrastructure thousands of people lose their lives in Bangladesh. Though government of Bangladesh has been taking lots of initiative to minimize this COVID-19 impacts in Bangladesh but due to density of population, lack of medical infrastructure, lack of sufficient doctor, lock down and suspended all economic activities, people become unemployed, decrease income, increase poverty and seriously impacted human security in Bangladesh. Main objectives of the study to identify impact of COVID-19 on human security in Bangladesh and formulate a strategy for minimize COVID-19 impact on human security in Bangladesh. This study helps to understand the COVID-19 impacts on human security in Bangladesh of the political science students, researchers and policy makers. Researcher uses primary and secondary sources of this article.

The Silent Extinction of Species and Taxonomists—An Appeal to Science Policymakers and Legislators

The science of taxonomy, albeit being fundamental for all organismic research, has been underfunded and undervalued for about two generations. We analyze how this could happen, particularly in times of a biodiversity crisis, when we have increased awareness amongst the population and decision makers that knowledge about species we share the planet with is indispensable for finding solutions. We identify five major issues: the habit of holding taxonomy in low esteem; the focus on inappropriate publication metrics in evaluating scientific output; the excessive focus on innovative technology in evaluating scientific relevance; shifting priorities in natural history museums away from their traditional strengths; and changing attitudes towards specimen collecting and increasing legislation regulating collecting and international exchange of specimens. To transform taxonomy into a thriving science again, we urgently suggest significantly increasing baseline funding for permanent positions in taxonomy, particularly in natural history museums; reviving taxonomic research and teaching in universities at the tenured professor level; strongly increasing soft money for integrative taxonomy projects; refraining using journal-based metrics for evaluating individual researchers and scientific output and instead focusing on quality; installing governmental support for open access publishing; focusing digitizing efforts to the most useful parts of collections, freeing resources for improving data quality by improving identifications; requiring natural history museums to focus on collection-based research; and ending the trend of prohibitive legislation towards scientific collecting and international exchange of taxonomic specimens, and instead building legal frameworks supportive of biodiversity research.

Semantic domain comparison of research keywords by indicator-based fuzzy distances: A new prospect

Assessing the similarity of scientific outputs based on an indicator has not been addressed much so far. The topic, however, may find several potential applications which can help enrich procedures of ranking, research monitoring, and scientific policy-making. The present study offers a new method to quantify such similarities based on keyword co-occurrence matrices. In the proposed method, first, the keyword co-occurrence networks are transformed into their associated newly defined fuzzy sets, named as scientosemantic domains. Then, a fuzzy distance between the two domains is found based on an arbitrary indicator. In this paper, the three indicators of frequency, development and investment appeal are used. The proposed method is implemented for five types of concept comparison. For each type, concepts are represented by a canonical keyword with different field codes. Scientosemantic domains of concepts are sourced out of bibliometric data obtained from appropriate queries on SCOPUS. Number of keywords used to define scientosemantic domains ranges from about 30 to 800. Since indicator-based comparison of scientosemantic domains are not dealt with in the literature, the obtained distances between concepts are verified by qualitative and expert evaluations. For all cases, frequency- and development-based distances are less than those for investment appeal; while crisp distances for the latter extend beyond 0.6, the former does not exceed 0.3. The greatest distances are observed for investment appeal in technology-related keywords.

Factors Associated with Children’s Subjective Wellbeing During COVID-19 Pandemic in Bangladesh

The study of subjective wellbeing has received increasing interest among social science researchers and policy makers in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there appears to be a gap in the knowledge in terms of how the children experienced the pandemic, which may be different from the experience encountered by the adults. This article fills this gap by (a) examining children’s self-reported experience of the pandemic in Bangladesh and (b) identifying the socio-demographic, economic and psycho-social factors which were associated with their subjective wellbeing during the pandemic in the country. For this purpose, a child friendly questionnaire was developed, and a survey was conducted among 1370 children aged 10–12 years. The disruption caused by the pandemic was evident in children’s reporting of the movement of families from their usual place of living, job losses by their parents, food poverty, digital divide, and fear of the pandemic. In terms of factors affecting children’s wellbeing, eight factors (rural-urban differential, food poverty, digital inequality, support from friends and family, ability to manage learning from home, self-perceived safety, and worry about changes in student life) were found to have had statistically significant association with their wellbeing during the pandemic. These findings are discussed in the context of child wellbeing theories and previous empirical studies. Some policies are identified and put forward as recommendations for improving children’s wellbeing in Bangladesh.

PROVIDING A SOCIAL VALUE CREATION MODEL BASED ON UNIVERSITY SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (USR)

The purpose of this study was to provide a social value creation model based on the dimensions of university social responsibility. In this model, the supporting literature of the balanced scorecard field is used. In this model, the development of creating value for the beneficiaries follows the triad of: (1) internal processes, (2) academic audiences, and (3) learning and growth. Also, innovation development, organizational development and social learning play key roles in this model. This model is elaborated to developing a road map for science and technology policy makers in the development of university social responsibilities. This research also describes the experience of how to use balanced scorecard method, shows how this method can be used to formulate strategies in the field of social responsibility of universities and what advantages this method has in comparison with other methods of developing cultural and social strategies. The manuscript identifies the strategies of university social responsibility in the dimensions of the balanced scorecard, which is to identify these factors using qualitative method (using snowball method) and quantitative (using appropriate statistical tests). It is used as a mixed method and in the classification of researches based on how to collect data, this research is located in the descriptive research group of the survey and due to the experimental and non-experimental characteristics of the research, the present research method is considered as a non-experimental method.

A ‘Uniform’ for All States?

A ‘Uniform’ for All States?

Analysis of Open Science Policy Recommendations Proposed in India’s 5th Science, Technology & Innovation Policy Draft

One of the core principles of science is to aid socio-economic growth. Open science is a movement that reinforces the primacy of science in the direction of economic and social welfare. UNESCO's recommendation on open science aims to provide an international framework for open science policy and practice. It endorses unrestricted access to scholarly publications and data, the use of digital technologies to drive scientific processes, more collaboration and cooperation among the actors in the scientific ecosystem, sharing of research infrastructure, acknowledgment of diverse knowledge systems, and science for society. Open science could enable a productive science ecosystem in global south countries through efficient knowledge circulation, resource sharing, and collaboration. Analysis of open science policy from a global south country can provide valuable insights. India is preparing to adopt an open science framework recommended in the 5th Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy (STIP) draft, released in December 2020. The STIP draft recommends open access to articles and research data from publicly funded projects, access to research infrastructure beyond the boundary of academic and research institutions, strengthening of Indian journals, and open educational resources. However, the draft lacks an exhaustive implementation plan. The draft falls short in devising strategies to foster collaboration between actors of the STI ecosystem, the inclusion of traditional knowledge systems, and society's role in knowledge creation processes. The science policymakers and advisers of the Department of Science and Technology and the government of India should probe these areas to develop a more effective and inclusive open science framework.

Socioeconomic outcomes of ecological restoration projects and parallel policies: A case‐study of the agro‐pastoral ecotone in northern China

AbstractClarifying the socioeconomic processes and outcomes of ecological restoration projects (ERPs) is important to the ERP's effectiveness or performance. In addition, ERPs are often carried out in parallel with other policies and may have complex and integrated impacts on social‐ecological systems. However, few studies have included the impact of such parallel policies in their analysis. Here, the agro‐pastoral ecotone in northern China, which contains several national ERPs and grass‐based livestock husbandry promotion policies, was used to analyze the socioeconomic outcomes in the context of multi‐policies. Specifically, we developed a framework to integrate linkages between multiple ecosystem management policies, livelihood assets, activities, and socioeconomic outcomes and used a structural equation model to distinguish the contributions and pathways of multi‐policies to socioeconomic outcomes. Thus, our framework follows the cascading effects of multi‐policies from the perspective of rural livelihoods while highlighting the diverse socioeconomic impacts. The results showed that grass‐based livestock husbandry and the local economy had a more significant impact on rural income compared to ERPs. However, it is worth noting that the agricultural structure has also changed with the development of grass‐based livestock husbandry, which may have a negative feedback effect on the ERP effectiveness. In other words, complementarity and offsetting can occur between ERPs and parallel policies. Our study contributes to a comprehensive understanding of the social‐ecological processes and outcomes, thereby providing new methods and insights for future scientific policymaking.

Teaching Graduate Attributes along with subject content: Perspectives from Science Teacher Educators

This study explored the extent to which science teacher educators in Norway introduce, teach, and assess graduate attributes (GA), a range of qualities, skills or competences considered vital for one’s survival and thriving in a complex world. A qualitative analysis of views from a sample of science teacher educators revealed majorly an implicit approach to the teaching and assessment of graduate attributes along with the main teaching subjects. Moreover, the lack of a graduate attributes profile for science teachers is impeding the teaching and assessment of these attributes. The findings raise important questions to science educators and policy makers regarding how to best address graduate attributes in science teacher education.

Relationship between collaboration and normalized scientific impact in South American public universities

The relationship between international collaboration and scientific impact is studied in the context of South American universities. This study aims to comprehensively analyze the strength of this relationship using nonparametric statistical methods. The records are the 244,300 papers published in journals indexed in Scopus (2011–2020) by researchers affiliated to 10 South American public universities and extracted with Scival support. There is a marked trend of collaborative work, since 93% of publications were collaborative at institutional, national or international level, with a higher percentage of international collaboration. A refined analysis of the geographic collaboration of publications in Q1 journals further evidences the frequency of international collaboration. In the top 4 collaborating partner institutions for each university, the presence of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique of France (CNRS) is observed, followed by the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research of Argentina (Conicet). It is proven that there is a statistically significant relationship (p < .01) in each of the 10 universities between collaboration (number of countries) and normalized impact (FWCI). The results confirmed the hypothesis of this study and the authors provide practical recommendations for science policy makers and researchers, including the promotion of strategic collaboration between different institutional sectors of society to increase the impact of publications.