Since long time we are talking about sustainability and how to live our life – satisfy our needs – without affecting those of the future generations. This approach seems to be the root of multiple emerging concepts that intends to give form to our reality such as circularity, smart-cities, green and digital transitions – and why not, resilience. All of them, emerging from different scientific fields such as economy or environmental sciences, have adaptations to other sciences such as urbanism, sociology, technology and so on.
We are talking about the design of our societies, how to organise social life, how to deal with our needs and prepare for the future. Some of you may have already heard about the need and push to include more Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in interdisciplinary research and policy design. Additionally, it is predominantly increasing the role of science informing policymaking, responsible of designing sort of generic ‘guidelines’ for our life.
Science has an important role in understanding the present and shaping the future, so policymaking does. Either they make recommendations (for science) or design policies addressing to societal needs (for policymakers). One can argue that we live in an interconnected, quite globalised world. But we can’t just make generic recommendations or create common policies for all. They should be tailored to local contexts: for instance, if we talk about circularity, climate adaptation and so on: what does it mean for each of us?
Experimental research, such as Living Labs (including co-creation, co-design, participative approaches), is one way to deal with it. When we say “we shape the future” it is actually society that should ideate, imagine and build the future they want to live. Societal engagement is an important dimension of innovation activities and practices, whose task is to make science, technology and innovation more open to stakeholders and society as a whole. This also requires a deep work to increase people’s trust in science, which can be done if we change the way we approach our everyday life as scientists and institutions. Let’s see some ways.
As scientists, we should always make sure to include citizens in our research design, to talk to them – and whenever seems “a long way”, at least, we should read some science-based papers that talk about people in that place. Just to say, there is always a sociologist or anthropologist (just to mention some disciplines) that may have talked about people in your city or region. Another important step is to make universities and research centres more “open” to society. When we do science, we should never forget why we do science. Universities should not be exclusive (different from prestigious!), but inclusive and open for people to actively participate in research. Furthermore, there should be also a key bridge between science and policymakers, so policymakers should also keep citizens and science as a main element of their policy design – but not just by reading! They should understand how people deal with consequences of complexity, be prepared to understand what could happen if I take one or the other decision.
Even when we debate and propose some conceptual – many times innovative – approaches or policy design, we should be clear on the role of society. We can’t for instance propose some sort of changes, without even acknowledging differential perceptions of a phenomena, or how societies may think the way they live. If we work this way, we are using top-down science development, many times masked under “bottom-up” developments. The fact we need to preserve nature and preserve the way we live in our planet, we can’t just be naïve and say “well, just do this or that” – some people may not want to do some changes, but rather other sort of changes that may also contribute to a solution. Maybe they propose even another solution. Don’t get me wrong, but we can’t also keep just saying “fine, we do awareness raising campaigns”…
This is why science needs more (social) science. We must acknowledge decades of development of understanding of our societies, understand social change and barriers to implementation of policies (that for instance, social psychology can provide), we need to talk to people. If we say we do science, we can’t skip reality. After all, science is about pursuing to develop knowledge about our world and the society that lives in it. This is not an imaginary world, but the real world.
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