Global Governance of Science
March 18th, 2009Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
The European Commission has just released a new report titled, The Global Governance of Science. It is available here in PDF. Here is the abstract:
This report is the product of an expert group acting under a mandate from the European Commission Directorate General for Research to which legal scholars, sociologists, philosophers and political scientists from Europe, the United States of America, China and South-Africa have contributed. This report seeks to advance a vision of global governance for the common good that invokes European principles of good governance and fundamental rights. It is our belief that the European Union as a political entity situated between the national and global levels, with its principles of good governance, its charter of fundamental rights and commitments to a European Research Area, is ideally placed to encourage critical reflection and undertake practical leadership in relation to the global governance of science and innovation. Our recommendations are addressed not only to policymakers in the European Commission and the Member States of the EU, but equally to those organisations worldwide operating within and around science.
March 18th, 2009 at 7:55 am
“global governance of science and innovation” ??!!
Who writes this stuff? What a bloody nightmare! Bureaucrats empowered to define what is or is not science, what is correct, permissable and fundable…
March 18th, 2009 at 8:18 am
LOL. That is, indeed, bureacracy-speak, if I ever heard it! Can someone please put it in English. It should not require more than two sentences. Gotta love it when the government speaks.
March 18th, 2009 at 8:31 am
Jae, Two sentences ea? Well ok.
The US control of science is working out really well to get global control of energy use. Let’s try it for everything.
March 18th, 2009 at 11:29 am
This is what EU bureaucrats do all day. They develop grand plans that have no chance of succeeding in the real world.
Does anyone remember the Lisbon Goals of 2000? By 2010 the EU would overtake the US as the most competitive economy in the world. The bureaucrats and experts developed a plan but the economy refused to cooperate. Not only has it not succeeded but they have fallen further behind in most metrics. If only the economy would have been smart enough to listen to the experts.
March 18th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
It’s sad!
These Europeans don’t appreciate that one of the biggest problems, even in Europe, is the low level of public understanding of what science is, and how although it tries to reduce uncertainty – it can never deliver absolute truth about the ‘real’ world. And that no other discipline can do better.
So they give NO attention to promoting science education to improve global governance of science. The teaching of scepticism, moderated by empirical testing of models, as it might apply to the practice of global governance, in general, seems not to be appreciated. And although they emphasize the importance of involving ALL kinds of stake-holders in discussions of science policy, NOT ONE NATURAL SCIENTIST participated in preparing this document!
March 19th, 2009 at 1:11 am
When we are done implementing this plan, you will only do the research that we think is safe, under the precautionary principle, and you will only make the discoveries that we find to be socially acceptable.
March 19th, 2009 at 5:49 am
The announcement refers to, “European principles of good governance and fundamental rights.” Does this refers to the same European principles-in-action that gave us the Thirty Years War, The Terror (of the French Revolution), Napoleon, WWI, Fascistic Italy, Communistic Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, the Gulags, and the Holocaust?
God save us from European principles of good governance and fundamental rights.
Government governs best that governs least, especially regarding science.
March 19th, 2009 at 5:58 am
Re #6 – I hope everyone thinks that all research that should be done safely? Researchers in general work under guidelines developed by different governing agencies. Find it hard to imagine that EU will adopt a centralized governing plan on this topic.
Re #5 – Is interesting that the entire author site was more on policy side of things, but I don’t think that is uncommon.
Maybe Roger could comment on similar studies in the US that don’t involve the actual sciences. I guess it is feasible that the authors got inputs from actual scientist doing work, but in this case it was a policy document written by policy geared authors.
Re #1 – People that get funded to write it, that is who. It is likely someone above them in the food chain wanted it. While I could not find the exact funding source it seems amongst these 3 on page 2: Directorate-General for Research, Directorate L – Science, Economy and Society, Unit L.3 – Governance and Ethics. But on Page 3 the closest direct link appears to be to DIRECTORATE-GENERAL FOR RESEARCH SCIENCE, ECONOMY AND SOCIETY. While I did not find the funding source on the EU site, it is likely to have come from this funding line http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/home_en.html. What was interesting is they did a similar study in fp6 – http://tinyurl.com/pro-fp6
March 19th, 2009 at 7:36 am
MJ Re #6 – Thank you for the links. I particularly liked the project to study what is and what is not “research” for purposes of applying the rules.
Of course, the question arises at the outset as to whether a project to define “research” is itself “research”… I think a preliminary study was required here to determine whether something which is itself “research” can serve as a defining referent for “research” itself, ontologically speaking.
In practical terms, should the Ministry of Deciding Whether It Really Is Research decide in advance on each proposal or simply field inquires presented by the Ministry of Funding Acceptable Inquiries if and when a grey area arises. We should probably have a study….
March 19th, 2009 at 7:37 am
I meant # 8 I inadvertently wrote #6
March 23rd, 2009 at 2:11 am
[...] This article explains and links to the report. It seems to me this is a grab too far, but it shows the grand intentions of this supra-national body to try to control our lives. [...]