Senior Fellow and Adjunct Professor, ISSP Principal, Paulicyworks
The federal Science Minister has launched a nation-wide consultation to adapt a made in Canada Athena SWAN initiative, the internationally recognized venture that celebrates higher education institutions that have implemented practices to advance equity, diversity and inclusion in the sciences, especially in addressing gender equality.
Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in Science and Society, Winter/Spring 2015, ISSP, University of Ottawa. Current President of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Honor Society. Sigma Xi was the first scientific organization to support the March.
The March for Science represented a new phenomenon in science, the rise of a mass demonstration of scientists with a broad agenda in support of the scientific enterprise as a whole rather than a particular issue. On 22 April 2017, over 100,000 scientists, engineers, students, and people concerned for the scientific enterprise marched in mass demonstrations numbering in support of science in major cities and more than a few small towns and even remote research stations. Inspired by the Women’s March and organized in only five months by a small group of scientists, most of whom were post-doctorate fellows.
Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in Science and Society for 2018, ISSP, University of Ottawa; Distinguished Professor and co-Director, School of Public and International Affairs & Genetic Engineering and Society Center, North Carolina University
I had the pleasure of attending the Canada SynBio 2018 Conference “Engineering Biology for Health, in Toronto last week (http://www.ontariogenomics.ca/2018syntheticbiologyconference/). While I’ve been to many such events in the United States, this was my first formal introduction to the Canadian innovation context for emerging biotechnologies. The event was designed to build Canada’s synthetic biology community through networking, discussion, and planning. Synthetic biology is most simply defined as “engineering biology to make useful things.”
Senior Fellow and Adjunct Professor, ISSP Principal, Paulicyworks
Some years ago (25 to be more precise), with a government Chief Scientist, I had the privilege of being invited to participate in a unique meeting in Acapulco of science and technology advisory bodies to heads of government in the Americas organized by the Consejo Consultivo de Ciencias (CCC). It was the second gathering of the group first initiated in Ixtapa in November 1991 where the objective was to have S&T perspectives and advice better integrated with foreign affairs and engage globally oriented scientists to provide a unique source of advice to heads of government on integration of science related public policy issues.
Senior Fellow and former CN Paul M. Tellier Chair on Business and Public Policy
University of Ottawa
[In the interests of length, supporting citations and references have been dropped from this blog copy. The full paper on this topic is available from the author at richard.french@uottawa.ca]
There is a remarkable consensus that it has proven unexpectedly difficult to identify the successes of Evidence-based Policy (EBP). Those who, mostly starting from the normative premises of EBP, have looked more closely at the use of scientific knowledge in policy-making, rediscovered a number of phenomena, many well-known to students of policy-making, which may account for this absence. It should be emphasized that the great majority of these scholars began their research motivated by an instinctive conviction of the value of scientific research for public policy.
Former Fulbright Visiting Research Chair, ISSP
Immediate Past President of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Honor Society
Issues of who benefits, who is allowed to contribute to science, who has a say in how science is governed, and how science is admitted into society and culture have come to maturity only in the past decade. Taken together, these issues are called “the right to science” and form a new framework for considering a full range of issues in science and technology policy.
Senior Fellow and Adjunct Professor, ISSP Principal,Paulicy works
Since 2005 when it was founded as the brainchild of John de la Mothe, a Canada Research Chair for innovation at University of Ottawa, and Nicholas Vonortas of George Washington University (GWU), the D. Allan Bromley Memorial Lecture and Event has provided graduate students with the opportunity to meet and exchange ideas with senior science and technology (S&T) policy advisors from the two capitals—Ottawa and Washington, D.C. In the spirit of honouring the legacy of the Canadian-born science advisor to the US President George H.W. Bush, the event alternates between the two capitals.
Inaugural Director and Core Member, ISSP
Associate Professor, Department of Geography, University of Ottawa
I had the privilege to be the rapporteur at the Workshop on Principles & Guidelines for Government Scientific Advice held on September 28, 2016 and to report the results to the plenary of the 2nd INGSA Conference two days later. The workshop was facilitated by James Wilsdon and Dan Sarewitz and included approximately 40 experts from 20 nations, with additional input from the Global Young Academy. I offer here observations from the rapporteur’s vantage point.
Postdoctoral Fellow, ISSP
Global Governance PhD candidate (ABD) at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, University of Waterloo
The Canadian government has expressed a strong commitment to grounding its action on climate change in fact-based decision-making and robust science. Computer-based climate-economy models have become standard tools for aiding decisions on climate policy. As such, these models offer an important and revealing example of the science- policy interface that the ISSP works in.
Canada Research Chair in Information Law,
Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa
Municipal police services in North America now commonly make digital crime maps available to the public online. These interactive maps allow individuals to choose a particular part of their city, as well as a window of time (crimes in the last 7, 14 or 21 days, for example). They can search for all mapped crimes in this time frame or can limit their search to particular types of crime. The results are returned in the form of icons on a map of the selected area. The icons represent different categories of criminal activity, and clicking on each icon will reveal basic information about the incident.
The opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the ISSP or its staff.
