Management Implications of Future S&T Issues Risk management Information for Policymaking Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Globalization Other.

Management Implications of Future S&T Issues

• Risk management

• Information for Policymaking

• Interdisciplinary Science and Technology

• Globalization

• Other items

Regional Demographicsof Participants

Asia, Sth.Pac.&Oceania40

Africa1

Europe18

Latin America15

North America14

Question 1: S&T Risk ManagementGeneral Comments

• Educated global opinion & ethical scientists vs. Regulation & enforcement: is a resolution possible?

• Moore's Law is a self-fulfilling; Regulators have no chance of keeping up.

• The gap between those who become physically and mentally enhanced over the next 25 years and those who don't, will be a new source of conflict.

• S&T risks affect many countries; therefore, international cooperation is justified

S&T Risk General Comments (continued)

• Prohibitions will drive science underground

• The whole world has to be educated or else innovation will be prevented.

• North America took long-range future risks the most seriously

• China took the global S&T forecasting and assessment organization the most seriously

• The precautionary principle cannot stop risk, but should measure and make known the effects of using the results of scientific research; the regulatory burden should be appropriate for the risk involved

S&T Risk Management elements- synthesis -

• Expert International definitions

• Build consensus among major S&T countries, then broader global community, possibly leading to treaties and sanctions

• International S&T organization

• Media (also included in question #2)

• University education (also included in #2)

• Global S&T Fund

• Davos-like S&T Forum

International definitions

Eminent S&T leaders, academies of sciences, special S&T interest groups define:• International risk standards• Codes of conduct• Scientific Oath (like the Hippocratic Oath)• Text for international treaties including possible

sanctions and criteria for intervention • Missions for on-going systems

International S&T Organization

Not regulatory, but information systems:• Networks and Nodes (Academies of Sciences,

special interest groups e.g. NNI, risk improvement communities

• Forecasts, assessments, monitoring of both risk and opportunities

• Risk Data base (facts, informed judgements, conjectures, alternative views about speed, impacts, severity

University Education

Since many thought that only through the training of honorable scientists could risk be managed, universities should require:

• Ethics of science courses to include humanities, medicine, environmental science, ethics, religion, philosophy, global view of human affairs and … perceive ethical, environmental and social consequences of research and technology

• Code of conduct

• Scientific Oath

Global S&T Fund

• Fund defensive technologies to reduce risk

• Fund globally important R&D that cannot attract venture capital due to long time prior to return on investment, e.g., non-greenhouse global energy technologies

• Deputizes labs as UN deputizes peacekeeping forces

• Long-term financing via licensing technology

Davos-like S&T forums

• National S&T Policy Officials

• National Lab Scientists

• Corporate R&D Managers

• University Research Scientists

• NGO S&T Leaders

• International S&T Officials

• Media - news executives, science writers, software designers, TV/radio/movie producers

International Treaties

• Regulating technological applications; not so much for basic science

• Use of sanctions

• Disagreement over intervention even when the most extreme threats to planetary life support exist (there were no interventions in the development and deployment of nuclear weapons.)

Media• Public discussion about S&T risk management

• Connect stories of stakeholder groups, International S&T organization, University researchers, Global S&T Fund, Davos-like S&T Forums, to inform a broad public discussion to help build global consensus

• International standards have to be consistent with S&T changes and human evolution

Question 2:Information for Policymaking

Improve or bypass government policymakers?

• Revolts against bureaucratic control will stimulate special interest groups and innovations

• Public policymakers cannot keep up, instead groups will form (national academies, NNI, etc) to make the policy others accept

• Politicians may have to be bypassed with new uses of Internet to improve collective intelligence

• Let corporations invest into the best college students and issue press releases to attack venture capital, rather than use the slow peer reviewed professional journals

• Markets will drive the actual decisions, but governments can help bring leaders together

Improve Public Policy Information

• The onus is on scientists to close the knowledge gap

• Communications of science to the public and politicians through the media is the key

• We do not recognize the need for trained expertise that crosses the boundaries between the natural, medical, and technological sciences, on the one hand, and the policy and social sciences, on the other.

• Scientists are not rewarded for trying to improve public understanding; they are criticized for doing it

Regional-oriented comments• Developing countries have virtually no basic research

and R&D is nearly always controlled by government

• Post-communist countries have no S&T policy because focus is only on privatization and monetary policy

• Among the EU-citizens surveyed, 45.3% declare to be rather interested in science and technology issues, whereas fewer find politics (41.3%) and economics (37.9%) interesting.

• The EU has developed a “Science and Society” action plan to address this question

Elements for Strategic Actors

• Government Policymakers

• S&T Donors

• Scientists and Engineers

• Media

• Private Sector

• Education

Government policymakers

• Create systematic prioritization processes

• The force of change will be so great that politicians will have to change

• Create Ministry of S&T which conducts regular briefings for cabinet

• Make it mandatory for governemt officials dealing with S&T to have close contact with senior scientists

Government (continued)

• Include S&T futures in strategic planning, framing policies

• Change the policymaking team to include government, S&T inst., media, and public

• Learn from the success of the Human genome project

• Receive regular overviews of S&T issues for Parliament committees

• Create ways to understand S&T nuances

Government (continued)

• Political parties should have S&T committees with modern communications methods

• Encourage national labs personnel to take communications courses and use speakers bureaus.

• Create senior positions for those trained in the linkages among natural & social sciences, medical and technological sciences, and policy

• Better to have politicians who can listen to science than scientists who can talk to politicians

• Create multi-stake holder participatory processes

S&T Donors

• what the public currently thinks about a research topic

• who needs to know the conclusions; and

• how the research results will be communicated and to whom

Require that scientific research proposals include:

Scientists and Engineers

• It is the S&T community’s responsibility to improve policymaking

• Adopt a politician

• Run for political office

• Make communications simple and connected to daily life

• Increase exchanges among government policymakers, media, and the S&T community using the latest communications technology

Scientists and Engineers (continued)

• Identify the people who can communicate effectively

• Hold regular meetings with media

• Validate S&T communicators (e.g.,Segan) who are specialist-generalists

• Understand that the views of local constituencies are more important to politicians than research from scientists

• Engage in large-scale popularization of their work

Private Sector and NGOs

• Conduct briefings for politicians via National Academies that point out the economic impacts of S&T

• Make the committee define their views in public meetings

• Complexity leads to new emergent systems

Media

• Provide open discussions when experts disagree

• Have S&T experts in local, national, and international media

• Create one-stop-shopping location to get current scientific options on policy topics from the Internet

Web site on topics could show:• relevant theory and what is known or generally believed

• alternative scientifically credible explanations of meaning of data, and credible descriptions about possible impacts

• speculation and conjecture about the issue

• links to source documents describing research or data, research institutes, key research documents, advocacy groups, and related interdisciplinary groups

With a set of standards outlining:• consistent style for the WebPages for all different issues

• management structure for continuous review and update

• 'peer review' process to evaluate statements

• How policymakers’ staffs could monitor and distill this information, and provide policymakers’ feedback

Education

• Universities should include courses on public communications of scientific research

• Elementary and secondary school curricula should include systems, logical, analytical, creative, lateral, imaginative, and futuristic thinking

Other S&T management issues?

• S&T Ethics

• How can modern technologies accelerate the development of S&T in developing nations?

• Popularization of science worldwide.

• Third World has an enormous need for scientists and far more in the future.

• How to reconcile science’s contribution to human well-being and the profit motive?

Other S&T management issues? (cont.)

• Who owns intellectual property? How do you deal with patent rights? Does it make sense in a rapidly changing world to sell your product without regard to patent?

• One of the major problems, for federal agency scientists, is the overall inability to receive rewards and advancement based on their scientific work. In most, if not all, agencies, to advance requires pursuit of the " management" career ladder.

Other S&T management issues? (cont.)

• Information technology will unite the world into one super Internet making it very difficult to keep secrets.

• Are there limits to the rates at which humanity can absorb S&T?

• The most destructive nano-based weapons may not be nanosystems as such but interactions between civilian nanotechnology and information attacks.

Other S&T management issues? (cont.)

• Patents already exist for prototype systems to insert millions of fibers into the brain, which might someday allow gigabyte thruput into and out of the brain. Given the variety of incentives and cultures in the world -- including cultures which "own" employees during the workday -- it is unclear how much this technology will be used for human advancement and augmentation, versus enslavement.

Other S&T management issues? (cont.)

• What are the best tools and concepts for prioritization beyond spreadsheets and guessing?

• Information overload