Science Cheerleader

From the White House:
“Look for a blog post on participation beginning on June 10th and get involved! We improve citizen participation by demonstrating its effectiveness in practice.”

SC Note: Of course this came from the White House.  Will we live to see the day when Congress utters those words? I say, YES! (For new subscribers, that was my attempt to bait Congress into a deeper discussion on how and why they should reopen a 21st Century Office of Technology Assessment with an emphasis on public participation.)

TUESDAY, JUNE 9TH, 2009 AT 9:45 PM
Wrap-Up of the Open Government Brainstorming: Participation
Posted by Beth Noveck
On May 21st through June 3rd, thousands of you shared your ideas in Phase I of this public consultation process, the Open Government Brainstorm.   June 3rd marked the beginning of Phase II, the Discussion Phase. We started with your ideas on Transparency.  Hundreds of comments flooded in from across the country.  Tomorrow we turn to Participation. This blog posting sets the stage for that conversation by summarizing the input we received on participation during the Brainstorm.

As the President noted in his January 21st Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, participation is essential because: “Public engagement enhances the Government’s effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge.” In the Open Government Brainstorm, you suggested many ideas for how to create and improve opportunities for public participation in government. In the next four days, we will take the next step in translating those ideas into concrete, measurable and cost-effective solutions.

We’ve heard from so many of you just how important public participation in political life can be. Several groups sent us lofty participation principles, such as these from the International Association of Public Participation and these from the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation. We read and considered all the participation ideas you generated during the Open Government Brainstorm hosted by the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA). We also reviewed ideas submitted by federal employees, who were particularly engaged and lively on this topic. NAPA did an analysis of the Brainstorm (pdf).

We grouped the participation-related suggestions you submitted into four topics that we want to discuss with you this week: (more…)

….I received a Masters Degree from the University of Pennsylvania where I studied the role of citizens in science. Here I am with my co-graduate, comedian  Yakov Smirnoff!

This led to my current push to restore the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, as a means to provide sound science policy advice to Congress with a mechanism for public participation; the early development of a web-based match-making tool to link researchers to volunteers from the public; and a collaboration with Professor James Trefil and the 76ers Cheerleaders to increase adult science literacy.

Approximately one year ago, this site emerged as a platform to share these initiatives with hundreds of thousands of readers who tune in to learn about, comment on, or build upon these thoughts. I owe a HUGE thank you to my incredibly talented friend Steve Grasse who encouraged me to “out” myself as a former professional cheerleader for the sake of science. His wonderful staff at Gyro built the foundation of this site. I am indebted to Steve and his team for helping me chart this course.

And, of course, there’s my family, both immediate and extended (includes friends). On paper, my family looks pretty darn traditional. Scratch the surface a little and you will find:

-Stewie from Family Guy (you’ll spot him right away in this picture if you imagine me as Louis).

-A wiser, but much younger, version of me (hint: the only other female)

-My future scientist, based on his ability to measure baking ingredients and build awesome Lego structures (the small guy in the front).

-The super-achiever who asked me why I received a medal for finishing a 26.6 mile marathon when “like, mom, 1,000 people beat you”. (Skeptical one in the back.)

-And, the man who has little interest in science and even less faith in public participation (”come with me when I select a jury someday and tell me if you want your peers weighing in on major science policy issues”) but who makes it possible for me to spin off on this very time-consuming adventure. Thanks, Bob!

Thank YOU sciencecheerleader.com subscribers. This is a collaborative effort and your comments are incredibly valuable. Looking forward to another year of working with you to increase adult science literacy, grow the ranks of citizen scientists, and create more opportunities for the public to weigh in on key science policy matters….and then some!

Cheers!

Darlene

Many organizations exist to develop participatory experiences so citizens’ opinions are shared with policy decision makers. The President and his Executive Branch seem pretty tuned into this thinking. Congress/Legislative Branch, however, is about a decade behind   I’m hoping Congress will treat itself to a healthy dose of dedicated sound science policy advice mixed with some public opinion in the form of a Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. We’re not reinventing the wheel. Other nations have Science and Technology Assessment agencies that pull in public participation from time to time. Our Congress doesn’t even have a Tech Assessment Agency let alone a mechanism for public input. They ought to have one. They used to have one. But I digress.
Back to defining a “participatory democracy”.

Here’s one example from AmericaSpeaks. Other organizations neck-deep in this issue can be found on the  National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation website.

Hot off the press, here’s Holt’s opinion piece on why Congress should restore the Office of Technology Assessment. In it, he wisely cites Obama’s plans to restore science to its rightful place by bringing scientists back into the fold as advisers to the Executive Branch.  However, Holt seems to neglect the other half of the President’s effort: provide opportunities for the public to participate in science policy discussions. After all, scientists are not value-neutral beings and they should not be held responsible for determining verdicts on policy matters affecting our lives….we should have a say in the outcome.  The Executive Branch understands this.  Based on Holt’s op-ed, it’s unclear whether he or the Legislative Branch “gets” this. Hmmm. He seemed to embrace the idea when we first discussed this.

Maybe it all comes down to word count (one hopes)?

Two steps forward, one step back. Stay tuned. I need to go rattle some more cages.

A friend and adviser, Dick Sclove, is a U.S. representative on the massive World Wide Views on Global Climate Change initiative. No surprise that this is being organized by the Danish Board of Technology, science and technology policy advisers to Parliament. All of us in favor of reopening a similar agency here in the U.S. (to advise Congress) are fortunate to have Dick on our team as we call for the reopening of the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, with mechanisms for public participation.

This morning, Dick and I spoke with Congressman Rush Holt’s legislative aide about this very issue. Holt is pushing for funds to reopen the OTA. I’m in contact with his office on a weekly basis to assist his efforts and help ensure the “public participation” piece of the equation does not get lost in this effort.

Here’s a copy of an email I just received from Lars Kluver, Director of the Danish Board of Technology re: the WWViews on Global Climate Change.

“I write to you to inform you about the existence of the project “World Wide Views on Global Warming”, which is making citizen participation meetings on global climate policies up to the COP15 UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen, December 2009. The project now has 46 partner countries (representatives pictured, below), so it is really a global citizen participation.

Seen from both a technology assessment and a citizen participation point of view, this project is historical. I cannot recall that so many countries have joined before in order to make policy advice on the global level. Neither have we been able to find examples of advisory citizen consultation that embraces so many countries in the same process.”

Check it out and weigh in with your opinions! And consider joining the Facebook group in support of reopening an OTA with public participation.

Flag-waving Republican, Newt Gingrich, dismantled the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (science policy advisers to Congress) as a symbol of his believe in the Contract with America back in the 90s. Bad move. And a little silly to slash a lean office with a modest budget that produced hundreds of still-valued reports on hot science policy topics. Plus Newt loves science. He really does. He thought Congress didn’t need the OTA because they could just pick up the phone and call scientists and engineers for advice. Really?

It’s been 15 years, give or take, and we witnessed the ugly side of science when it’s been politically manipulated. Congress needed the OTA  then and they surely need it now. Obama and the majority of the Executive Branch understand the value of sound science policy advice, particularly when it takes into account public input for determining things like Risk Assessment. The Legislative Branch, however, is about six steps behind.
The good news is that momentum is building on the streets to reopen the OTA and add a mechanism for public participation. Even Republicans are embracing this movement. I’ve counted three so far but it wasn’t long ago the sum would have been zero:

Me, Bart and the founder of Scientific Blogging, Hank Campbell. Read why they support the call to reopen the OTA.

It’s a start.

Cheers!

PS: Bart recently posted this example of why he supports the reopening of the OTA.

Looks like our push to restore the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (w/public participation) has attracted the attention of the editors at one of my favorite sites, the Personal Democracy Forum’s TechPresident.

Found this article on their site today. OTA 2.0: Reviving the Expert Agency with a New Public Participation Component.

See additional, recent news coverage from Phil Plait, Chris Mooney and Science Progress.

Be sure to check out the executive summary (p. 11-14) and introduction (p. 15-16).

From one of my favorite sites, TechPresident.com– a blog covers everything from how President Obama is using the web, to how campaigns at all levels are going online, to how voters are responding and creating their own user-generated content.

Executive Branchers Draw White House a Road Map to Participatory Government

Nancy Scola | April 9, 2009 – 10:47am 

So much of the focus in open government circles of late has been on political transparency, but staffers from 23 different federal agencies (EPA, CDC, DOE, FEMA, NIH, FERC, Park Service, and more) recently gathered in Washington DC to brainstorm on that lower-profile aspect of open government: tackling the challenge of engaging the American people in their democracy. The conference convened by AmericaSpeaks, Demos, Harvard’s Ash Institute, and others produced a 51-page report that lists seven solid suggestions from how to get from where we are today to a more participatory future:

1. Develop a high-level, inter-agency governance structure for implementing the Open Government Directive.
2. Establish systems that will support government-wide adoption of participation and collaboration practices.
3. Demonstrate the value of participation through highly visible Presidential initiatives.
4. Respond to the barrier that public and stakeholder participation are not valued inside agencies.
5. Ensure that participation and collaboration activities are adequately funded.
6. Address institutional barriers that reward the status quo.
7. Address existing rules and regulations that impede participation and collaboration.

Phil Plait is The Bad Astronomer. His blog was named one of the top 25 of 2009 by TIME Magazine. He just joined Chris Mooney of Discover Magazine and formally endorsed the push to restore the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (thanks for the shout out, Phil!).

We encourage you to spread the word, ask people to sign the online OTA petition, join the Facebook discussion, and let’s help restore science to its rightful place in America.

Cheers!

Darlene