sciencehorizons

Method(s) Used

• Citizen Advisory Groups (Methods)
• Deliberative Workshops (Methods)
• User Panels (Methods)

Name of person who posted the project:

Edward Andersson

Location of project:

United Kingdom

Date when the project started:

2006

Date when the project ended/project ongoing:

2007

Background to project:

Sciencehorizons provided the opportunity for citizens to respond to possible future scenarios and share their hopes and fears about specific technologies and general trends.

Purpose of project:

• Discover views about future directions for science and technology
  from a broad set of participants
• Inform policy and decision-making on the direction of research and the regulation of science and technology
• Help identify priorities for further public engagement.

Its secondary aims were to:

• Widen public awareness of the role of science and technology in shaping the future of the UK
• Improve public confidence in the Government?s approach to
  considering wider implications of science and technology
• Increase understanding of the value of public dialogue in shaping policy and decision-making
• Improve understanding of how to engage large numbers of people
  in dialogue on new and emerging science and technology issues
• Strengthen collaboration among science engagement practitioners.

Project activities:

• Strand One involved a deliberative panel that met twice, worked with the sciencehorizons pack and with experts to explore a range of issues in detail.
• Strand Two involved facilitated meetings for the public using the
  sciencehorizons pack to explore and discuss issues. Scientists were invited to take part, and participant feedback was obtained after each meeting.
• Strand Three involved self-organised groups in the community who held discussions using the sciencehorizons pack without any external facilitation. Organisers submitted results from the
  discussion and feedback online.

All the findings were presented on the project?s website:
http://www.sciencehorizons.org.uk/

Project delivery organisations:

• Dialogue by Design
• BBC Worldwide Interactive Learning
• Graphic Science
• Think lab
• Shared Practice
• Ian Christie (independent analyst)

Number of participants:
Strand One (30), Two (842), Three (2293)

Project results:

• Effective exploration with the public on the same set of issues using
  different techniques
• Provided evidence of the extent to which the engagement technique
  affects people?s views
• Substantive findings presented to policy makers

Sciencehorizons identified a number of areas of science and technology about which members of the public had particular interest or concerns. These are being used (2007/8) to build a map of the relevant policy owners across Government to see:

• To what extent these issues are on their department?s own agenda
• Whether policy makers are already working on them
• Whether departments need to ?join up? to address the issues.

Importantly, the results of the sciencehorizons project will help to inform further areas for public dialogue in the future.

Impact on participants
The members of the Strand One deliberative panel were all asked to
fill in evaluation forms and a sample of participants from the other strands also gave feedback.

• 100% of those who took part in the panel said they had learnt something new from the process and three-quarters said the experience had made a difference to how they view science and technology.

DIUS is now planning to develop a new phase of Sciencewise dialogue
projects using the themes and issues identified during sciencehorizons and the wider WIST initiative.

Contact details:

http://www.sciencehorizons.org.uk/

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