1. Methodologies
This project identified and developed a number of methodologies to engage wider public in a positive, continuous and responsible manner. There are three key factors for positive engagement. (1) Value elicitation. ‘Q mapping’ is a novel visualisation tool for the hybridity of qualitative and quantitative methods derived from Q methodology. As another value elicitation method, ‘interactive public comments’ are based on broad segments of people who expressed their opinions in a dialogue-based activity on a specific issue related to science and innovation. (2) Art and design. To reach and involve more diverse audiences, recent public engagement and science communication methodologies have focused more on entertainment and emotion by using artistic languages, visual narratives, and cultural events. We created a mobile, tangible, and approachable design product to speculate on and explore uncertain futures, with gene drives as one of the genome editing technologies. (3) Place and mobility. This project identified the vital role of islands as spaces for engagement and mobility by taking art festivals, citizen science workshops and art appreciation tours as priming events and developing a psychogeographic approach and walking methods.
2. Theoretical and practical framework
Whereas many scholars have already provided significant insight into public views, relatively few studies have conducted in-depth analysis of the contingent nature of public views on emerging technologies. As a part of this project, our study examined ambiguity in public perception about emerging biotechnologies through the use of several intermediate response options in a survey. To understand the relationship between respondents’ thoughts and attitudes, we also examined how respondents’ indecision is related to their cognitive concept of “self” as well as their interpretation of “future generations”. The results revealed that respondents who have a narrow self-concept tend to postpone decisions about the application of emerging technologies. In parallel, I identified different types and perceptions of ‘the public’ in the historical context of science policy in developed countries and explicated how and why a future-oriented ‘public’ can be positively engaged in science and innovation. Looking into the Norwegian governmental and societal response to the coronavirus outbreak, this project additionally studied how invisible assets are valued in public communication with authorities with a high degree of public trust.
In practical terms, we created a new mobile, tangible, and approachable design product to speculate and explore uncertain futures as well as ambiguous ethical issues related to biotechnologies, and organised a couple of participatory workshops applying a local variation of the visual thinking strategies (VTS) in concert with art festivals on islands. This project also contributed to the design and analysis of a participatory ‘future workshop’ in real-time technology assessment activities on molecular robotics.
3. Organisational and societal conditions
This project could not find by extensive literature review any suitable organisations or cases for positive engagement in Europe, but we discussed that community-based civic activities on radioactivity monitoring in Japan as the third type of citizen science and showed how general citizens actively and positively engage with the negative impacts of scientific development. I also found that one of the societal conditions under which people can positively engage with science is traceability. The overemphasis of identifiability in EU GDPR and other legislation undervalues the origin, process and utility of the data and prevents a sense of sharing in the spirit of open science between donors and users. Traceability is a probably a more appropriate openness-related function than transparency and accessibility and elicits a more positive attitude from research participants.
- Exploitation and dissemination
While organising two OsloMet Workshops, this project was associated with a number of international and interdisciplinary workshops and meetings, including Norway-Japan alumni and researcher gathering, Belgium-Japan citizen science workshop, Molecular Robotics annual meeting, UK-Japan RRI workshop, STIG PoP seminar, Belgium-Japan STS workshop, and International biotech and AI Workshop. In addition to a number of academic articles and presentations, I also contributed to policy reports for National Diet Library and Cabinet Office in Japan, an island magazine, JSPS Stockholm Newsletter and a book on incertitude of science.
