Transforming and Repositioning the American Science Museum: New Tools for Engaging the Public

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Technology and Development in a Conflict Zone: War as a Prioritizing Tool

What we now refer to as “development” really began in a systematic way after World War II. The victors had a variety of pressures to address, the most fearsome being the threat of yet another emerging conflict involving new applications…

A Brave New (online) World

We live in an age where new technologies hit the marketplace at a rate that far outpaces society’s ability to engage in meaningful political debates about their ethical, legal, and political implications. Synthetic biology, nanotechnology and Big Data are only…

Time to reassess the promise of nanotechnology? An analysis of research, developments and commercialization

Investment in Nanotechnology research is based on the promise of a transition to active nanotechnology, nanostructures, and nanodevices – everything from self-healing materials to molecular machines. But is such a transition really underway, and if so, then where and at…

What If You Can’t Measure What Matters?

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Self-Critical Public Science: How to Integrate Creativity and Responsibility

Basic science is rapidly becoming an endangered species. Nowadays, publicly funded scientists cannot easily separate it from applied science, let alone insulate it from questions about its broad ethical, economic and environmental impacts. With policies for public engagement of science…

Competition within government-sponsored R&D: An effective tool for innovation or a recipe for waste and duplication?

Is competition between and within government R&D agencies a force for innovation and for achieving desired outcomes? Or does competition lead to waste, duplication, and unproductive rivalry? The answer is: it depends. Competition can be a powerful tool leading to…

Climate of Uncertainty: Civic Scenarios for Decision Making

Wicked problems like climate change stress both our ordinary sense-making capacities and our most sophisticated policy tools. While there is overwhelming consensus in the climate science community that human-induced climate change is under way, the specific rates and degrees of…

Creative Nonfiction/Narrative: Forging a Working Bond between Next Generation Science Communicators and Next Generation Science Policy Scholars

Communicating science to the general public is difficult. But communicating science policy creates even more complexity and challenge for many reasons including the public’s incomplete understanding of the ways in which policy is conceived, shaped and adapted, how economics are…