By John Zillman

One of the challenges which the scientific and technological community now seem to face more starkly and more frequently is how to maintain the integrity of the use of science in public policy.

The daily media remind us of the host of contentious issues on which the community might reasonably expect ‘the system’ to have found ways to ensure the wise use of science to inform policy formulation – the impact of human activities on climate, the balance of benefits and risks in the take-up of established technologies like nuclear power generation and the pros and cons of new fields such as nanoscience and biotechnologies – to name but a few.

There is no shortage of information from the scientific community. Hardly a day goes by without the media carrying word of new research results which, it is claimed, will overturn yesterday’s conventional wisdom. Recent decades have seen many great initiatives in the public communication of science, and even in public engagement with science. Many excellent science journals directed at the lay reader have appeared. But it would be hard to claim that the mechanisms for ensuring that the output of scientific research is wisely and effectively used in the public policy process are working well.

There are formidable impediments to integrity in the science-policy process and major shortcomings on all sides:

• Pressures on the publicly funded research community to be seen to be delivering useful results have forced them to compete for media attention by oversimplifying and overstating the significance of their findings – the scourge of ‘science by media release’;

• The media are only interested in a ‘story’, whether it be a scientific ‘breakthrough’ or a dispute within the scientific community, rather than a balanced perspective on whatever the issue might be;

• When the community at large see scientists using their scientific standing to promote their own policy agendas they quickly lose confidence in the objectivity of the science;

• Governments are increasingly looking to market mechanisms (eg they tender for consultants) to obtain their external advice on complex issues;

• Publicly funded research agencies have found themselves under (at least subtle) pressure to produce research results which support, rather than inform, government policy; and

• The mechanisms which were traditionally available to serve as the bridge between the research community and government policy formulation such as the learned academies and the former ASTEC (Australian Science and Technology Council) have become too under-resourced or have been abolished.

In July 1999, the Budapest World Conference on Science, called for a new contract between science and society, with society providing stronger support for science and scientists committing themselves more strongly to conducting science for the good of society. The March 2005 Venice review of progress on the Budapest agenda found that it has been far less than hoped for. It expressed particular concern over the inadequacy of mechanisms for ensuring the objectivity of science for policy.

International scientific, engineering and medical organisations tried to address this issue in a joint statement to the heads of state and government at the UN General Assembly in September 2005, on the role of science and technology for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. This stresses the need for “sound mechanisms and essential infrastructure for applying scientific and technological knowledge to national problem solving”. It asserts, in particular, that each nation must have a source of independent, credible and timely advice to government and the public on critical issues involving science and technology.

It is timely to reassert that need in the Australian context. The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) will celebrate its 30th anniversary next month (November 2005). Along with its sister Academies (the Australian Academy of Science, the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and the Australian Academy of the Humanities), it is committed to providing sound and objective advice to government and the community, as it has done for the past three decades. But, while the Fellowship of the Academy are more than willing to contribute their time, expertise and advice, Australia needs better mechanisms for harnessing and using that advice in the national interest. That is an extremely important shared challenge for the academies, government, industry, academia and the community at large.

Dr John Zillman AO FTSE is President of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering.

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