Interview with Sir Roland Jackson

Sir Roland Jackson is the CEO of the British Science Association. He is also a member of the Sciencewise Steering group and chair of the Science for All Expert Group. He has a degree in biochemistry and a doctorate in molecular immunology from Oxford, and has a background in science education.

You are a member of the Sciencewise-ERC steering group, promoting dialogue with the public on emerging issues in science and technology. Why do you think it’s important to have a dialogue with the public on issues involving science?
I think there are three broad reasons why science-based institutions or government might want to engage with the public, forming what you can call an engagement triangle. Firstly, to collaborate with people for mutual benefit, secondly, to receive information from the public to understand their perspectives and thirdly to transmit information or educate the public. These are categories which we have come up with at the Science for All Expert Group and which others have used as well. They are very distinct reasons. One of our key messages is that it’s important to be clear from the outset which of these (or which combination of these) is the motivation. Not because one is a better motivation than any other, but because they require different processes for engagement.

Do you think those are the same reasons that the public want to engage in dialogue, or do you think the public have different reasons?
That’s a very interesting question. Again I think that the public have multiple reasons. In some cases they are particularly interested in some aspects of science and want to find out more. Or, they may have a strong opinion and want to influence policy, or the way that scientists think about an issue. This can happen particularly around single issue campaigns such as GM. The answer to your question also depends on what you define as dialogue.

How would you define dialogue?
I think the problem is that dialogue has become such a generic term that it has lost some of its useful meaning. During the work we did on the public engagement triangle we concluded that the word was no longer helpful because it is used to mean so many different things by different people. All those definitions may be valid, but they are confused. We are asking for a little bit more precision from people on what they mean and, particularly, what their underlying purpose is for doing whatever it is they call dialogue.

Over your time working in science dialogue, do you think policy makers take more account of the public’s views in science?
I think that’s very hard to judge. Elected politicians have always had to take public views into account - that’s how they get elected. More interesting are the changes in attitudes of those who advise politicians. I have been working in the field for over 25 years and over that time I think civil servants and people running institutions have increasingly seen the benefits of the kinds of engagement that organisations like Sciencewise have promoted. I don’t have much hard evidence, but I think you can see the change in things like the attention given to proper processes for consultation in Cabinet Office guidelines over the past few years and the tone of recent initiatives such as the Concordat for Engaging the Public with Research.

You are also the Chair for the Science For All Expert Group. We are coming up to a year since the Science For All Report and Action Plan was published in February 2010. Can you tell us a bit about this work?
Our aim at the Science For All group is to create a culture within the scientific and policy community in which it becomes the norm to think about and do appropriate societal engagement. We want a situation in which it is assumed that part of the role of being a scientist includes public engagement.

This is a big agenda, and we’re working towards it in many different ways. We’re currently working on developing a collective memory by sharing what we’ve learnt from evaluations of public engagement exercises. We’re also trying to better understand the motivations of businesses to carry out public engagement and how they think about it. Often businesses use different language from the public or not for profit sector, and we need to ask: are we talking about the same things in different languages, or are we actually talking about different things? That will be published in a couple of months’ time. We’ve also been working on professional development for people who define themselves as science communicators, which is a real priority for the coming year.

But I wouldn’t want to claim credit for all the positive work going on in this area. The publication of the Concordat for Engaging the Public with Research by Research Councils UK, and the Manifesto for Public Engagement by the NCCPE, both published in December, are significant statements of principle and intent and provide a really useful basis for public engagement with the sciences.

So, what progress has been made so far?
We’ve been making incremental progress on a lot of fronts simultaneously. I’ve always been an incrementalist rather than a revolutionary. This is particularly important when we are talking about very long-term changes of culture and relationships between people and groups and society. These things don’t happen overnight so (to use the current jargon) we need to ‘nudge’ people in the right direction.

We’ve now been going for over a year, and are about to have an open review process. There’s a workshop on 23 February where we will collectively take stock of where we are and how we can move forward.

In five years time, what progress would you like to see in science dialogue?
I think we’ll know if we’ve been successful if the public are telling those of us in science related institutions that they feel that they can get access to information that they want, when they want, in the form that they want, and that they feel that they can have influence. For example almost half of people in the 2008 Public Attitudes to Science survey said that science and technology moves too fast to be properly regulated by Government - I’d like to see that percentage coming down. I’d also like to see a reduction in the numbers who say that they can’t follow developments in science and technology because of the speed. The big question is what can we do, collectively, to bring these figures down significantly?

What do you think the key drivers will be which will shape science dialogue over the next five years?
I think one issue which will be important to address over the next few years will be around citizen trust in government. The work that Sciencewise is doing at the moment in this area could be very helpful. Specific science issues may well become key drivers too, particularly those with strong moral and ethical components that deal with questions of how much to meddle with nature. We may get a sense of which issues will be prominent in the next Public Attitudes to Science survey to be published in March. I think the issue of ensuring value for money in a time of cuts will also become increasingly important. Once again, it comes down to the importance of being very clear about your purpose for a particular process and not just doing engagement because it’s interesting. Another key driver may be some as yet unforeseen emerging issue that suddenly flares up.

Finally, what would your advice be to scientists wanting to get more involved in public dialogue?
I’d say you should start with what you are comfortable with and follow the motivation which switches you on to become involved in the first place. In my experience, many scientists are surprised by what comes back when they dip their toe in the water. We often get comments from scientists that they are amazed at how interested the public are in what they do, and also that they find the public’s perceptions really useful, helping scientists see the wood, not just the trees.