A few weeks ago Richard Horton, the editor of the British medical journal Lancet, caused a stir when he published an editorial lambasting the Royal Society. Here is how it was reported in the Telegraph:

“In the latest issue, published today, under the headline “What is the Royal Society for?” Dr Horton argues that the eminent body has produced little of public value in medicine and public health in recent times, and calls for an immediate and radical review of its role. “The Royal Society began as a radical idea – a place to discuss the subversive subject of science and to witness remarkable experiments. “Today [it] is a lazy institution, resting on its historical laurels. Instead of being the intellectual hub of European scientific culture, it has reinvented itself as something far more self-serving and parochial. It is little more than a shrill and superficial cheerleader for British science. “Its modern mission is about domestic image rather than international substance.”"

The Royal Society issued a response and Horton a rejoinder, and I would encourage interested readers to have a look. The exchange between The Lancet and The Royal Society raises some important and uncomfortable questions about the role of national science academies in democratic processes.

At Prometheus we have frequently commented on the role of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and its role in policy and politics. For example:

*We criticized a panel comprised to recommend a course of action on the Hubble Space Telescope as being comprised of experts who shared a common bias to save the instrument..

*We praised a panel comprised to identify the benefits to science of extending the TRMM satellite mission as clearly identifying its scope and mandate.

*We applauded the efforts of the interest group NRDC which looked behind the curtain of NRC empanelment processes to show some evidence of high-level influence of the Bush Administration in the composition of a panel looking at the risks of perchlorate.

*We expressed some concerns about the role of NRC in the Yucca Mountain controversy, where decisions putatively about science carry extraordinarily large political consequences.

The reports of the National Research Council (NRC) play a significant role in many contested political issues that involve science. And most such reports are funded by the public through federal agencies, but the NRC is not an agency of government. This situation raises some questions that are rarely asked. For example,

How should the NRC relate to the policy process?

Should it codify this relationship to foster transparency?

In what ways is the NRC accountable to the public?

Should the empanelment process be more transparent?

The charges given to committees are negotiated out of sight. Should this process be more open?

Who oversees the work of the NRC?

Though the analogy is not perfect, the spat between the Royal Society and The Lancet provides an example of what can happen when the role of an institution seeking to provide guidance to decision makers is left unclear. As the U.S. NRC moves to new leadership it would seem appropriate that a high-level consideration and clarification of its role in policy and politics would go a long way toward preemptively dealing with issues at the interface of science and politics such as listed above.