The roundtable attendees noted that the neurosciences have great potential in terms of restoring and enhancing human cognition; however, the same technologies are dual use and could also be used to incapacitate combatants, degrade the performance of an enemy or disrupt neurological functions such as memory, trust or mood. The ability to incapacitate could be seen as potentially fulfilling a valuable strategic role in the asymmetrically orientated ‘new wars’ of the 21^st century and already there are examples, such as the Moscow theatre siege in 2002, in which so-called ‘non-lethal weapons’ have been used. However, the development of a safe incapacitating agent is not technically feasible in the foreseeable future and is likely to have significant long term ramifications for international arms control regimes and broader norms prohibiting the use of chemical and biological weapons.

Dealing with the challenge of the hostile exploitation of neurobiology, as with a number of developments in the life sciences and chemistry, is going to require a range of activities at different levels; one aspect of which involves building awareness of the concerns of the security community amongst those at the forefront of research in this area. This process serves a number of purposes, not least of which in providing future scientists with the capacity to recognise -and respond in a more informed manner- to dual use challenges. This has been identified as an issue in two converging disarmament treaties, the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. Neurobiology falls between these two conventions, both of which have recently embarked on a renewed effort to wrestle with education and awareness raising through an education working group in the CWC, and the agreement to treat education as one of a number of annual topics in the BWC. Yet to date, in both cases, calls for greater action in education and awareness raising at the international level have not yet resulted in significant action at the level of practising scientists, despite a number of progressive initiatives by NGOs and academics.

At the level of life science educators, this can in part be attributed to some of the practical challenges faced in integrating material on security into busy science courses, but is also likely to reflect a broad sense that security is irrelevant or less relevant compared with a number of other topics competing for attention. At the level of governments, there have been some successes notably in Japan and Pakistan; however, several other initiatives have been slow and in some cases dwindled due to problems in gaining traction amongst the wider scientific community.

Nonetheless, a ‘fresh effort’ is overdue. Future efforts must both incentivise and engage the scientific community as part of the solution, not as part of the problem. It is important to look at how the issue of dual use can be assimilated within broader professional training for scientists in the university curricula in a manner which is both holistic and sustainable; thereby equipping students to become responsible scientists capable of engaging with a range of ethical and societal issues. There are a number of other complementary interventions that could also be exploited, building on what has worked elsewhere. Examples include law enforcement outreach to scientists, an approach employed in an FBI outreach program in the US; the insertion of materials on security and safety in core text books for science courses; and working through scientific societies, such as the International Neuroethics Society. The employment of a number of mutually reinforcing activities could serve to episodically strengthen the development of a culture of responsibility.

It’s the first time that all four academies have come together like this on a policy issue. Such an interdisciplinary subject proved to be an interesting testing ground that really benefited from bringing together such diverse expertise. Having scientists, clinicians, engineers, philosophers, sociologists, policy makers and ethicists in the room together made for a lively debate on what is a fascinating subject.

Human enhancement has long been debated in general and specifically in relation to sport, from doping scandals to the role of equipment, and I was interested to see how the debate would play out in relation to the world of work.

 The enhancements discussed ranged from technologies that are starting to have impact in the near term (such as pharmaceutical cognitive enhancement and nutrition) to those further downstream such as artificial exoskeletons and sensory enhancements. For me, the highlight of the day was the animated discussion that ensued as attendees reflected on the potential implications of enhancement technologies. How should they be regulated in the context of work? Who would pay for them, or decide what becomes available? And is ‘enhancement’ even an appropriate term to use?

 A report of the meeting will be published later this year, and will be available on all of the Academies’ websites. In the meantime, further information on the meeting is available here.

Xufeng Zhu is currently Professor at the Zhou Enlai School of Government, Director of the Centre of Chinese Policy Science, and Associate Director of the Centre for MPA Education, Nankai University. He has published extensively, including on China’s Think Tanks (Tsinghua University Press, 2009) and on Expert Participation in Policy Change (China Renmin University Press, 2012).

Think tanks are organisations serving as ‘external brains’ of government. Since World War II, they have become important participants in the policy making process of western countries, especially the United States. Some western scholars have emphasized non-profitability and independence from government, political parties, and interest groups as defining features of think tanks. Strictly speaking, there are no such equivalent organisations in China. However, China has for decades had a diverse ecosystem of organisations that serve as policy researchers and advisors to the government. In 2007, the report of the 17^th Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Congress explicitly mentioned “the roles of think tanks” for the first time. This recognition and support from the authorities signified the anticipated rapid development of think tanks in China as well as their expanding influence.

Broadly speaking, China’s ‘think tanks’ are stable and autonomous organisations that conduct research and provide consultancy services on policy issues. There are three basic types of policy research institutes in China:

• official policy research institutes (affiliated to particular ministries and ministries’ institutional missions)
• semi-official think tanks (which have some connections to a supervising government agency)
• non-governmental think tanks.

The latter two types are government’s external policy research institutes, which we may call think tanks. 

 The first category of think tank, based on the Soviet model, appeared during the Yan’an period (1935-1948). These institutes mushroomed in the 1950s and 1960s and include the Research Office of the State Council and the Office of Policy Studies of local governments, Ministries and Commissions. Under Chinese law, an official policy research institute is regarded as a government agency, but functions as an immediate actor in the governmental policy making process, not as an external brain for government. They are responsible for drafting important policies, releasing information, and organising studies on policy issues.

Semi-official think tanks are the most important component in the policy research and consultation system outside the government of China. Semi-official think tanks are independent legal bodies founded by the government, who act as their supervisor. Under Chinese law, semi-official think tanks are public institutions. The two most important institutes of this type of think tanks are the Development Research Center (DRC) of State Council and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).

Semi-official think tanks are not completely autonomous, but they are run in a more autonomous manner than official policy research institutes. They are headed by government-nominated personnel and accept start-up capital from their supervising government agencies. They also receive a steady flow of core funds for regular research tasks assigned to them. Their policy outputs are thus somewhat shaped by government directives. On the other hand, semi-official think tanks have more freedom as they can accept external funds and research tasks from other government departments and organisations, even international organisations. With diminishing official sponsorship, semi-official think tanks have also become increasingly market oriented.

Compared with their predecessors, semi-official think tanks and their experts today are more independent of government agencies and their financers. They are also bolder in expressing viewpoints that diverge from those of government. Moreover, China’s think tanks are exerting growing influence. Think tanks have started to take part in open policy debates. 

A third category, non-government think tanks, emerged after Deng Xiaopings’s South China tour in 1992. Of note are two types of non-governmental think tanks:

• Those set up by China’s colleges and universities by returned scholars, which tend to develop new concepts and enjoy overseas sponsorship: eg the China Center for Economic Research(CCER), set up in Peking University by Justin Yifu Lin.
• Those set up by experts who had success in public institution-type think tanks, which are often founded by experts who left their former organizations to run their own research agencies in pursuance of their own ideological ambitions and beliefs. For instance, Unirule Institute of Economicsfounded by Mao Yushi in 1993 or Siyuan Social Sciences Research Center, Beijing (SSSRC) founded by Cao Siyuan in 1988.

The development of non-governmental think tanks is posing challenges to the traditional framework of policy consultation which used to be dominated by semi-official think tanks. Government officials are paying more attention to the opinions proposed by non-governmental think tanks than before, especially in the international relations field. (See Shambaugh, David. “China’s International Relations Think Tanks: Evolving Structure and Process.” The China Quarterly Vol. 171 (2002), pp. 575-96.) Non-governmental think tanks are also an increasingly important link between Chinese government officials and foreign experts. (See Glaser, B. S. and P. C. Saunders. “Chinese Civilian Foreign Policy Research Institutes: Evolving Roles and Increasing Influence.” The China Quarterly Vol. 171 (2002), pp. 597-616.)

An important feature in the Chinese think tank system is the emerging ‘revolving door’.

In the past, many of China’s think tank experts were co-opted into the government departments as government officials. One of the most remarkable examples is Zhu Rongji, who served as the Office Director of Industrial Economics Research of the CASS at the very beginning of the reform and opening-up in the end of 1970s, before becoming a well-respected Chinese Premier (1998-2003). Recently, it is not unusual for officials who have academic backgrounds return to think tanks after their retirement. For example, a newly established think tank, the China Center for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE, in 2009) acts as the revolving door, where many retired officials serve as the think tank’s leaders and take the lead in conducting the research work.

For a science policy nerd like me, meeting with international counterparts is like taking a holiday or meeting old friends in the pub at Christmas; there are many fresh things to explore but you can quickly get down to  business.

Friday’s small but perfectly-formed gathering in Beijing of about 50 experts to discuss the role of science in public policy-making was no exception.

Participants were treated to a comprehensive programme  of presentations on China’s science policy system, including from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), who are both the national academy of science – like the Royal Society – and a major research performer. We also heard from the Chinese Association for Science and Technology (CAST), China’s largest non-government association responsible for promoting science.

I have uploaded several of the presentations and they are available at the end of this post. Please have a look through and leave your comments below.

Three themes emerged for me as the conversation came to a focus towards the end of the day.

• What is the role of the scientist (and scientific organisations) in policy-making? As one participant put it, can scientists be athletes and referees for policy at the same time?
• Is scientific expertise sufficient for high quality and effective policy work? 
• What is the relationship between science and the public?

 My observation is that both in the UK and China, the scientific community have shown commitment to developing their capacity to inform public policy. But they also recognise there are practical limits to high expectations, and that with responsibility, comes accountability and transparency in decision-making (not only to policymakers).

This has made me wonder if in fact the title for the seminar might have been put as a question (and not a statement) ‘Science and Innovation into Policymaking?”

Recent speeches by the current and former Presidents of the Royal Society, and also by Premier Wen Jiabao at the Royal Society in June 2011 have also discussed the role of science in policy, and indeed wider society.

My thanks go to the S&I Network at the British Embassy in Beijing, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute for Policy Management’s Professor Li Xiaoxuan for inviting the Royal Society to participate in such a thoughtful series of discussions. I hope our conversations continue and welcome comments and contributions via this blog post.

Here are some of the presentations:

Mr Pan Jiaofeng, CAS (on a macro perspective) 

Madame Luo Hui, CAST (on the science policy landscape)

Mr Xie Guanfeng, CAS (an introduction to science policy in CAS)

Mr Kang Jincheng, Chinese Academy of Engineering (an intro to science policy in CAE)

Lan Zhiying, Renmin Univesrity (on lessons from the US)

Mr Zhu Xufeng, Nankai University (on Think Tanks)

David Tyfield, Lancaster University (on low carbon disrupters)

Huang Jikun, China’s GMO guru, CAS Institute for Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (on China’s agricultural policy and regional development)

Wang Xixin, Peking University Law School (on the role of the public and experts on policy making)

Mr Fan Jie, CAS Institute for Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (on China’s zoning strategies)

Performance Enhancement

The report examines a number of areas in which advances in neuroscience could optimise performance in a military context, from the recruitment and training of military personnel to improving cognitive and operational performance in the field.  For example, neuroimaging techniques have revealed that the human brain can process images, such as targets, much faster than the subject is consciously aware of.  A neurally interfaced weapons systems that records these neural markers could therefore potentially provide significant advantages over other system control methods in terms of speed and accuracy.  The report also examines the potential for neuroscience to provide improved avenues for rehabilitation and the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Performance Degradation

As in many fields of science, knowledge and technologies used for beneficial purposes can also be misused for harmful purposes.  Advances in neuropharmacology and drug delivery are making precise manipulation of the brain for therapeutic purposes increasingly feasible but these advances could also be exploited to create incapacitating chemical weapons.  Some states have already demonstrated an interest and willingness to use such weapons despite the entry into force of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).  One notable example is the deployment of an incapacitating chemical agent (believed to be a mixture of derivatives of the synthetic opiate fentanyl) by the Russian Special Forces during the Moscow theatre hostage crisis in October 2002.  While the siege was brought to an end, 129 of the hostages died following the use of the agent and many others suffered serious and long-term injury, emphasising the challenges of developing and deploying a ‘safe’ incapacitating weapon.

The CWC bans the development and use of all toxic chemicals as weapons, including those that cause temporary incapacitation, but includes an exemption for ‘law enforcement purposes including domestic riot control’, which is open to some ambiguity as to range of toxic chemicals permissible.  Due in part to this ambiguity, the international response following the Russian use of fentanyl derivatives in the Moscow theatre siege was muted.  Furthermore, the UK government position on incapacitating chemical weapons appears to have recently shifted.  A 1992 statement given to the UK parliament by the then Foreign Office Minister indicated that that the UK considered riot control agents to be the only toxic chemicals permissible for law enforcement purposes. However a more recent statement in August 2009 indicates a less restrictive interpretation of the CWC and suggests that the use of incapacitating chemical agents for law enforcement purposes would be in compliance with the CWC as long as they were in types and quantities consistent with that permitted purpose.

As Brain Waves 3: Neuroscience, conflict and security emphasises, it is not technically feasible to develop an absolutely safe incapacitating agent and delivery system because of inherent variables such as the size, health and age of the target population, secondary injury and the requirement for medical aftercare.  The UK government should therefore publish a statement on the reasons for its apparent shift in position on the interpretation of the CWC’s law enforcement provision and countries adhering to the CWC should address the definition and status of incapacitating chemical weapons under the CWC at the Review Conference in April 2013.

This week marks the first anniversary of the popular uprising in Egypt that resulted in the overthrow of the then president, Hosni Mubarak. Yesterday, as new rounds of demonstrations were taking place in Egypt, I attended the launch of an Institute of Development Studies bulletin on The Pulse of Egypt’s Revolt, exploring how and why the uprisings began. At the event, participants discussed the degree of optimism that might be held over whether the changes that so many strived for will be achieved. Will basic needs be met and social justice be achieved? The protests in Egypt continue long after Mubarak’s removal, with the military regime now the target.

We are particularly interested in the prospects for science and innovation now that a new parliament has been established.  The many images we saw from Egypt at the time of the uprising included those of demonstrators protecting the Library of Alexandria from looters by forming a human chain around it. This particularly struck a chord with us as the Library is one of the partners in the Egyptian case study of the Atlas of Science and Innovation in the Islamic World project.  This multi-partner project aims to chart the prospects for science and innovation across the member countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, through a series of country case studies.

As part of the evidence gathering process for the Egyptian case study, a small workshop was held at the library with a group of early career researchers, at which they discussed their hopes and aspirations for the future of science in Egypt. The anniversary has certainly given Egyptian scientists an opportunity to reflect on changes, amid positive reports of increased funding for science. 

The Egypt case study of the Atlas project will be published later this year.

In what might be described as the science policy Christmas lecture, former Royal Society President Lord Rees offered a tour de force of recurrent issues in science policy. Speaking at the Cambridge Centre for Science and Policy, Rees navigated issues from energy supply to food security, with a nod to the BSE and MMR  controversies, as well as the effects of global population dynamics. Via an extended discussion of the role of scientists in international climate change discussions, he reaches the conclusion that there is a “special obligation” on scientists to engage with public policy debates that lie close to their academic work.

What makes this speech worth reading in full is Rees’s careful explanation of what this obligation entails. Scientists provide direct, technical advice to government. But Rees argues that for many long-term policy issues, this specialist knowledge informs the debate without providing a solution. Deciding whether to build wind farms or nuclear power plants to keep the lights on is not a technical decision, but an economic and social one. Technical expertise means that scientist can play a privileged role in these debates. But Rees argues that this privilege must not be abused; scientists must show humility about the bounds of their expertise. In many areas, they are informed citizens or, as Rees puts it, scientific citizens:

 “Wide discussion is even more crucial when what’s in contention is not the science itself, but how new findings should be applied.  Such discussions should engage all of us, as citizens…”

 This lecture expands on one of Rees’s Reith lecture series in 2010, which you can still hear on the BBC World Service website and which have been turned into a book, ’From Here to Infinity — Scientific Horizons’.

As an aside, his section on generalities includes some very quotable home truths from a senior scientist. I have picked out a few from the full text:  

“We’re all  depressingly ‘lay’ outside our specialisms — my own knowledge, of recent biological advances, such as it is, comes largely from  ‘popular’ books and journalism.”

“ It’s surprising and gratifying that there’s wide interest in topics as far from everyday concerns as dinosaurs, cosmology,  or the LHC.   Some people, admittedly, can’t distinguish a proton from a protein. But just as many are ignorant of their nation’s history, and can’t find Korea or Syria on a map –  that’s just as  sad, and an equal impediment to a proper democratic debate.”

“Noisy controversy need not  signify evenly-balanced arguments.”

“‘Outsiders’ can all  access far more information and  want to  weigh up evidence for themselves.   Such scrutiny should generally  be  welcome.”

“Science is sometimes described as ‘organised scepticism’ and at its best it should be ‘self correcting’.”

Here is the full, uncorrected transcript from Lord Rees’s 5 December lecture.  You will notice the Royal Society science policy centre namechecks – apologies for the inadvertent self-promotion. 

What challenges does the future hold for the relationship between science and policy?

Science is becoming  ever more pervasive  in our lives and in public policy. My theme today will be how  the political system can  mesh more closely with the scientific community, and thereby improve policy decisions that have a scientific dimension.  

I speak with diffidence — there are some people here this evening with far deeper experience than I have. But my years as President of the Royal Society, where we had a policy unit excellently led by James Wilsdon, gave me a privileged breadth of perspective, as well as international links that offered a comparison with other countries.

 I’m going to be critical of some things in this country, but I should emphasise at the start that in many ways we handle these matters well.  As compared to the US, for instance, the interface with government is closer, the respect for evidence is stronger and the rapport between scientists and legislators is certainly better.   And, unlike any other European Country except Switzerland, the UK has a chief scientific adviser to the government. We also have ‘chief scientists’ in most government departments.

 The range and level of advice that’s needed is plainly very different in different parts of Whitehall — the Ministry of Defence offers more demanding challenge than the Ministry of Culture, Media and Sport.  Generally the chief scientists come from outside Whitehall for 3-5 years — they may keep a foothold in a university or research lab for one or two days a week.  They have the handicap of needing to learn the ways of the civil service in order to operate, but external appointees are thought to be best. As compared to career civil servants, they’re   more likely to be plugged in to recent research , and to international science, And they’re  more willing to speak truth to power — their careers don’t depend on ingratiating themselves with the hierarchy.

There have been very capable and energetic incumbents in these roles — it would be invidious to mention names. But some have been frustrated at not getting the access to ministers and the permanent secretary that’s a prerequisite for influence; and by the lack of a discretionary budget so they can commission their own studies. Of course, no individual has the breadth of expertise to cope with all they’ll encounter. In particular, the issues are often more engineering than academic.  For instance, the commitment to a huge number of offshore wind-turbines by 2020 — constructing one per two days — is widely regarded as unrealistic. It might have been better to have had more engineering scrutiny at the department Board when this policy was promulgated.

That’s why a chief scientist needs to have a network of contacts. It’s why there are numerous standing and ad hoc committees of experts across Whitehall — and why the guidelines about their independence are crucial. It’s also why independent bodies like the Royal Society and other learned societies are important — and I’ll allude later to some of the in-depth reports that such bodies have produced.

It was really during World War II that scientists first became really engaged in government. Winston Churchill valued their advice,   but kept them in their place: he insisted that they should be “on tap, not on top.”

It is indeed the elected politicians who should make decisions.  But I think we’d want to emphasise nowadays that scientific advisers shouldn’t just proffer facts, still less should they merely buttress policies already decided.  Experts should be prepared to challenge decision-makers, and help them navigate the uncertainties.

This was recognised in the US by President Obama.   He opined that scientists’ advice should be heeded “even when it is inconvenient — indeed especially when it is inconvenient”.  He filled some key posts in his administration with a ‘dream team’ of top-rate scientists.  They’ve had a tough and frustrating time, but it’s good for all of is that Steve Chu,  John Holden,  Jane Lubchenko and the rest are still ‘hanging in there’.

But there’s one thing that scientific advisors in any democratic system mustn’t forget.   When really big and long-term policies are in contention — whether about nuclear weapons, nuclear power, drug classification, or health risks — political decisions are seldom purely scientific: they involve ethics, economics and social policies as well.   And in domains beyond their special expertise, scientists speak just as citizens, with no enhanced authority.   I’ll come back later to discuss how scientists should engage more with the public and with the political process.

Sometimes, governments need urgent advice on an issue where one can separate out the science.   For instance,  the Icelandic  eruption  that disrupted air travel last year   raised urgent questions  about vulcanology,  about wind  patterns,  and about  how  volcanic dust  affects jet engines. In that instance, the knowledge was basically there: what was lacking was coordination, and an agreement on the acceptable level of risk. 

And this year, John Beddington was asked what advice should be given to Brits in Japan after the Fukushima episode — was there a radiation risk even in Tokyo?  Here again, the situation on the ground was unclear but the underlying science was basically known.

Sometimes, though, there’s an urgent question where the key science isn’t known.  An example was the outbreak of BSE or ‘mad cow disease’ in the 1980s.   At first,   experts conjectured that this disease posed no threat to humans, because it resembled scrapie in sheep, which had been endemic for 200 years without crossing the species barrier. That was a reasonable conjecture — and comforting   to politicians and public. But it proved wrong. The pendulum then swung the other way. Banning ‘beef on the bone’, for instance,  was in retrospect  an over-reaction,  but at the time seemed a prudent precaution against a potential tragedy that  could  have been  far more widespread than it actually  turned out to be.

Likewise, the government was advised to stocked up on vaccines against swine flu –   that was surely right, even though, fortunately,   the last epidemics proved milder than feared.    Indeed, if we apply to pandemics the same prudent analysis whereby we calculate an insurance premium — multiplying probability by consequences — we’d surely conclude that measures to alleviate this kind of extreme event should actually be scaled up. And world-wide coordination is crucial… Whether or not a pandemic gets global grip may hinge, for instance, on how quickly a Vietnamese poultry farmer   can report any strange sickness. 

Incidentally, there’s a mismatch between public perception of very different risks and their actual seriousness.   We fret unduly about carcinogens in food and low level radiation.   But we are in denial about ‘low-probability high-consequence’ events that should concern us more. The recent financial crash was one such; but others that haven’t yet happened — lethal pandemics among them   — should loom   higher on the agenda.

In the examples I’ve mentioned, governments, businesses, and individuals need the best available specialist advice — advice that fairly presents the level of risk, and the degree of uncertainty.  But what’s more contentious is how best to address long-term policy issues where there’s a major scientific element but where politics, economics and ethics enter more strongly.

 For instance:

Should we build nuclear power stations — or wind farms — if we want to keep the lights on?  Should we use more insecticides, or plant GM crops?  Should the law allow ‘designer babies’ or cognition-enhancing drugs?  How   much should computers invade our privacy?  How do we respond to long term environmental and climatic risks?

Such questions didn’t feature much in last year’s election campaign. That’s   partly because they transcend party politics. But it’s also because they’re long-term— and tend to be trumped by more urgent items on political agendas.

Moreover the stakes are getting higher — and the issues more global.  Indeed ever since the invention of thermonuclear weapons the main threats  to the world have come from humans and not from the rest of nature — we’ve entered a new  geological era, the  anthropogenic.

The threat of global nuclear annihilation has been in abeyance since the Cold War ended.  But new technologies with huge ‘upsides’ are also opening up new vulnerabilities.  For instance, global society depends on elaborate networks – electricity grids, air traffic control, international finance, just-in-time delivery and so forth.  Unless these are highly resilient, their manifest benefits could be outweighed by catastrophic (albeit rare) breakdowns cascading through the system.   And the threat is terror as well as error; concern about cyber-attack, by criminals or by hostile nations, is rising sharply. Synthetic biology, likewise, offers huge potential for medicine and agriculture — but it could facilitate bioterror.

And devastation could overtake us   insidiously rather than suddenly, through unsustainable pressure on energy supplies, food, water and other natural resources.  Humankind now appropriates around 40 percent of the world’s biomass.  And our collective ‘footprint’ is growing fast. This ‘ecological shock’ could irreversibly degrade our environment.    This is a much-studied scenario of course. But the message is that the impediments are political and economic, not technical.

Two important reports a couple of years ago — one from the Royal Society and another government ‘Foresight’ exercise — emphasised that modern engineering and agriculture could provide food and energy for the entire world’s population. But it’s crucial to introduce   advanced techniques to (for instance) Africa to feed a fast-rising population, given constraints on land and water.  GM was part of the prescription but only part — improved irrigation, low till farming, better refrigeration to cut waste, and so forth are equally necessary.   

But population is an issue. The  higher it gets, the more serious  all these pressures will become  – especially if the developing world, where most of the growth will be, narrows its gap with the developed world in its per capita consumption.

World population is now 7 billion – there’s actually a year or two uncertainty in when this milestone is passed, but the UN officially marked it last month.  The rise is projected to continue at least until 2050: by then, numbers will reach 9 billion.  Whether the rising trend continues beyond 2050 will depend on what people now in their teens and 20s decide about the number and spacing of their children.  Hundreds of millions of women are denied such a choice.  Enhancing the life-chances of the world’s poorest people – by providing clean water, primary education and other basics – should be a humanitarian imperative, and a readily achievable one.  But it seems also a precondition for achieving, especially in Africa, the demographic transition that’s already occurred elsewhere.

One think I did before leaving  the Royal Society was to initiate  a study, chaired by John Sulston,  called ‘People and the Planet’ , which will be reporting next year in time for the Rio + 20 conference. It should be important and timely. It will emphasise that the world’s ‘carrying capacity’ isn’t a single headline figure, but depends on lifestyle, technology and so forth. And also the huge regional variations. The growth will be fast in Africa and India; but in Europe, we’ll have a falling and ageing population.

(This of course means, but the way, that the world’s intellectual and commercial centre of gravity will move to Asia — signalling the end of four centuries of European and North American hegemony. But we’re not engaged in a zero sum game. We should welcome an expanded and more networked world, where China and other countries follow the trajectory of Singapore or South Korea)

 And now to another imponderable that might impact especially severely on the developing world:  climate change.  On this topic the Royal Society has been thoroughly engaged — with the science, the politics and the public perception.

When I’m asked about the science I always start with the measured rise in atmospheric CO2 (the Keeling curve). This rise isn’t controversial; nor is its attribution mainly to the burning of fossil fuels. Straightforward chemistry tells us that the CO2 build-up will induce a long-term warming trend, superimposed on all the other complicated effects that make climate fluctuate.

What is still poorly understood, however, is the ‘feedback’ from water vapour and clouds. The IPCC reports present a spread of projections, depending on how much this feedback enhances the blanketing by CO2.   Nonetheless, even the existing uncertain science convinces me that the threat of seriously disruptive climate change is high enough to justify its priority on the political agenda.

The science is intricate. But it’s a doddle   compared to the economics and politics of climate change. Nick Stern has averred that it needs ‘all the economics you ever learnt, and some more.  It’s a market failure on a colossal scale’.   It poses a unique political challenge for two reasons. First, the effect is non-localised:   CO2 emissions from this country have no more effect here than they do in Australia, and vice versa.  That means that any regulatory regime   has to be broadly international.  Second, there are long time-lags — it takes decades for the oceans to adjust to a new equilibrium, and centuries for ice-sheets to melt completely.  

There’s a balance to be struck between mitigating climate change and adapting to it.   And there are other questions.  How much should we sacrifice now to ensure that the world is no worse when our grandchildren grow old?  How much subsidy should be transferred from the rich world, whose fossil fuel emissions have mostly caused the problem, to the developing nations? How much should we incentivise clean energy’?   Should we gamble that our successors may devise a technical fix that will render nugatory any actions we take now?    How far should we already prepare for geoengineering as a possible ‘Plan B’?

On all these dilemmas, there’s as yet minimal consensus. 

As I already noted about science advice in general.  It’s crucial to keep ‘clear water’ between the science on the one hand, and the policy response on the other.  Risk assessment should be separate from risk management. 

What’s unfortunate about the climate debate is that this boundary has become blurred. It’s appropriate, indeed important,   to debate whether the UK should stick to the target of 80 percent cuts if no other nation does; and to point out that  we could  more cheaply meet our intermediate 2030 targets  by a dash for gas  (even without CCS) than by building wind farms. But the debate would be more constructive if,  instead of rubbishing all that scientists have already achieved, those who oppose current policies  recognised the imperative  to refine the science, and firm up the predictions — not just globally but, even more important,  for individual regions. 

Incidentally, anyone who trawls   the internet will find contradictory and confusing   claims that could well induce   utter scepticism about all climate science– or indeed about any scientific topic. But I’d offer an analogy.

Googling any disease reveals a bewildering range of purported remedies. But,  if  you developed some ailment and your own health were at stake,  you wouldn’t attach equal weight to everything on google: you’d  entrust yourself to someone with manifest medical credentials and a successful record of diagnosis.   Likewise, we get a clearer ‘steer’ on climate — though not of course a complete consensus — by attaching more weight to those with serious credentials in the subject  

But — and this is important –  even  if there were  complete certainty about how the world’s weather  responded to CO2 changes, there would still be divergent views on what governments should do   about it. And scientists should engage in these debates — though on the more general issues they should do so not as experts but as ‘scientific citizens’.

In that spirit, I’d add that I myself strongly support the Climate Change Act, and hope that our government exerts strong influence in Durban this week. It’s true that UK carbon emissions constitute only 1 or 2 percent of the problem. But we have   international leverage because of our government’s   leadership ever since the Gleneagles G8 Summit in 2002.  It’s important to give credit to several politicians. Not only Blair and Brown, but   several  Labour  ministers — the Miliband brothers, Hilary Benn, and others –  worked hard to  sustain these issues high on the agenda even though long-term altruism is plainly not  a vote-winner; and the coalition has not backtracked.

 Next, some comments on energy supply and security. This is a key issue in its own right, quite apart from its impact on the climate.  The world spends more than 5 trillion dollars a year on energy and its infrastructure.  But currently far too little is invested in developing techniques for economising on energy, storing it and generating it by low-carbon methods.   The main US investments are in small start-up companies, especially in solar energy. (And in the UK energy R and D has barely crept back up to its level in 1989 before it plummeted after the privatisations that occurred at that time.).  The ‘clean energy’ challenge deserves a commitment akin to the    Manhattan project or the Apollo moon landing.  Indeed it would be hard to think of anything more likely to enthuse young people towards careers in engineering that a firmly-proclaimed priority to develop clean energy for the developing and the developed world.

It’s surely in our interest not to fall behind the Chinese in developing some of the technologies that the world will need for a low-carbon economy. What are the options?

Wave and tidal energy may be a ‘niche market’ but it’s one where the UK has a competitive advantage.     This island nation has the geography — capes round its coast with fast-flowing tidal currents — and also expertise in marine technology spun off from North Sea oil and gas projects.

What about biofuels?  There’s been ambivalence about them because they compete for land use with food-growing and forests.  But in the long run GM techniques may lead to novel developments:  bugs that break down cellulose, or marine algae that convert solar energy directly into fuel.

Another need is for improved energy storage.  In the US, Steve Chu has given priority to improving batteries — for electric cars, and to complement unsteady power sources such as sun and wind.

What is the role of nuclear power?    I’d myself   favour the UK   having at least a replacement generation of power stations.   But the nuclear non-proliferation regime is fragile.  One  can’t be relaxed about a world-wide programme of nuclear power unless  internationally regulated  ‘fuel banks’ are established to provide enriched uranium and remove and store the waste.  Despite this ambivalence, it’s surely worthwhile to boost R and D into ‘fourth generation’ reactors, which could be more flexible in size, and safer. The industry has been relatively dormant for the last 20 years, and current designs date back to the 1960s.  Indeed a new report from the House of Lords select committee deplored the plummeting of the UK’s R and D effort to a level when we can’t replace the safety regulators when they retire, let alone participate in any innovation.

And of course, nuclear fusion still beckons as an inexhaustible source of energy. The biggest current effort is the ITER, internationally funded and based in France (Involving ‘magnetic confinement’ of ultra-hot gas. An alternative concept, whereby tiny deuterium pellets are zapped by converging beams from immense lasers, is being touted by the Livermore Laboratory in the US, but this facility seems primarily a defence project to provide lab-scale substitutes for H-bomb tests, where the promise of controlled fusion power is a political fig leaf — I got angry e-mails from Livermore when I said this last year. I’ll say it again now).

 Maybe the best long-term option for   Europe is solar energy — huge collectors, most perhaps in North Africa, generating power that’s distributed via a continent-wide smart grid.  Achieving this would require vision, commitment and public-private investment on the same scale as the building of Europe’s railways in the 19th century.

Many of us still hope that our civilisation can segue towards a low-carbon future without trauma and disaster. But no politician will gain much resonance by advocating a bare bones approach that entails unwelcome   lifestyle changes.  The priority for all  developed countries  should be to implement measures that actually save money – by using energy more efficiently, insulating buildings better — and to  incentivise new clean technologies so that (as fossil fuel prices rise) a transition to clean energy  is less costly. But what is very important is to prioritise the development of those new energy sources – be they wind, tides or solar or nuclear.

In twenty years,  we will  know — perhaps  from computer modelling, but also from how much global temperatures have actually risen  by then — whether  or not the feedback  from water vapour and clouds strongly amplifies the effect of CO2 itself in creating a ‘greenhouse effect’. If so, and if the world consequently seems on a rapidly-warming trajectory because international efforts to reduce emission haven’t been successful, there may be a pressure for ‘panic measures’. These would have to involve a ‘plan B’ — being fatalistic about continuing dependence on fossil fuels, but combating its effects by some form of geoengineering.

One option is to counteract the ‘greenhouse warming’ by (for instance) putting reflecting aerosols in the upper atmosphere, or even vast sunshades in space. The political problems of such geoengineering may be overwhelming.   Not all nations would want to turn down the thermostat equally, and there could be unintended side- effects. Moreover, the warming would return with a vengeance of the countermeasures were ever discontinued; and other consequences of rising CO2 (especially the deleterious effects of ocean acidification) would be unchecked.  An alternative strategy (which currently seems less practicable) would involve direct extraction of carbon from the atmosphere. This approach would be politically more acceptable — we’d essentially just be undoing the unwitting geoengineering we’ve done by burning fossil fuels. 

It seems right at least to  study  geoengineering — to clarify which options make sense and perhaps damp down  undue optimism about a technical ‘quick fix’ of our climate.  However, it already seems clear that it would be feasible and affordable to throw enough material into the stratosphere to change the world’s climate — indeed what is scary is that this capacity might be within the resources of a single nation, or even a single corporation or individual. Very elaborate climatic modelling would be needed in order to calculate the regional impacts of such an intervention. That is why it is crucial to sort out the complex governance issues raised by what’s called ‘Solar Radiation Management’ — and to do this well before   urgent pressures for action might build up.

Back now to some generalities.

I’ve sketched some of the ‘live’ issues where science and government overlap.   I’ve mentioned the role of government scientific advisors (and their networks); the role of Foresight and Royal Society Reports; and so forth. But despite all these worthy efforts, there are habitual grumbles that such inputs don’t have much traction. For politicians, the urgent trumps the important. And getting re-elected trumps almost everything. Anything that gets them into the press, or makes their postbag bulge, will get attention. It’s volume not quality that counts.

So scientists might have more leverage on politicians indirectly — via raising the profile of their work among   the public and in the  media and letting them do the campaigning — rather than by more official and direct channels. This is one reason — over and above the general cultural value of our findings –why ‘outreach’ by scientists is important, so let me say a word about it.

Research is professionalised, and technical.  There’s consequently a communication barrier.  Darwin was the last great scientist whose discoveries could be fully presented in accessible prose – indeed in fine literature.  I believe nonetheless that the essence of today’s research can be conveyed, without undue distortion, in a form accessible to all.       Science writers and journalists do an important job — and a difficult one.   I know how hard it is to explain in clear language even something I understand well.  But journalists have the far greater challenge of assimilating topics quite new to them, often to a tight deadline; some are required to speak at short notice, without hesitation, deviation or repetition, before a microphone or TV camera.  And professional scientists are an important part of their audience. We’re all   depressingly ‘lay’ outside our specialisms — my own knowledge, of recent biological advances, such as it is, comes largely from ‘popular’ books and journalism.

Incidentally, scientists habitually bemoan the meagre public grasp of their subject.  But I think they protest too much.  On the contrary, it’s surprising and gratifying that there’s wide interest in topics as far from everyday concerns as dinosaurs, cosmology,  or the LHC.   Some people, admittedly, can’t distinguish a proton from a protein. But just as many are ignorant of their nation’s history, and can’t find Korea or Syria on a map – that’s just as sad, and an equal impediment to a proper democratic debate. It’s among the ‘gatekeepers’ to the media, and among the politicians themselves, that there’s a specific ‘knowledge deficit’ in science.

When reporting  a particular  viewpoint, journalists should clarify  whether   is  widely supported, or whether  it is  contested  by 99 percent of  specialists (The  MMR vaccine  episode was in this latter category).   Noisy controversy need not signify evenly-balanced arguments. Of course the establishment is sometimes   routed and a maverick vindicated.   We all enjoy seeing this happen — but such instances are rarer than is commonly supposed.   The best scientific journalists are plugged into an extensive network that should enable them to calibrate novel claims and the reliability of sources, so that they can give a fairer ‘steer’ to the public.

Scientists shouldn’t shun the media. But in return they should expect media scrutiny.  There’s now less readiness accept any ‘authorities’ without question — not just in climate science.  ‘Outsiders’ can all access far more information and want to weigh up evidence for themselves.   Such scrutiny should generally be welcome.

In fact the Royal Society is now, in this context, addressing the protocols for dealing with large data-sets. Current practice in archiving and managing data is not uniform across all fields, nor across all countries.  Nor is there a consensus on the appropriate guidelines for making such information available. It’s not obviously right  that anyone, whether a UK taxpayer or not, whether they have good reason or not, can impose burdensome demands  on researchers by repeated requests, as can currently  happen under the Freedom of Information Act. On the other hand, we surely need to make data as accessible and ‘user friendly’ as possible. to data as much as we can, to ensure   that scientific claims are exposed to the widest scrutiny.  Science is sometimes described as ‘organised scepticism’ and at its best it should be ‘self correcting’.

Wide discussion is even more crucial when what’s in contention is not the science itself, but how new findings should be applied.  Such discussions should engage all of us, as citizens — and of course our elected representatives. 

Sometimes this has happened, and constructively too. In the UK, dialogue with parliamentarians led, despite divergent ethical stances, to a generally-admired legal framework on embryos and stem cells — a contrast to what happened in the US.  But we’ve had   failures too:  the GM crop debate was left too late — to a time when opinion was already polarised between eco-campaigners on the one side and commercial interests on the other.   Mindful of that failure, the Royal Society and the Academy of Engineering some years ago did a report on nanotechnology — with the aim of engaging with the public ‘upstream’ of any concrete applications.

It’s welcome that we have chief scientists embedded in Whitehall. But I think we need to have more input from experts independent of government too.

 Let me expand on this point with a flashback to   World War II. The scientific community was then immersed in the war effort; most monumentally in the Manhattan Project, but also in radar, operations research and code-breaking. When the war ended, most scientists returned with relief to peacetime academic pursuits.  But for some, especially those who had helped build the bomb,   the ivory tower wasn’t a sanctuary. They continued not just as scientists but as engaged citizens — promoting efforts to control the power they had helped unleash.

Essentially none of that   scientific generation survives — Hans Bethe, Rudolf Peierls, and Jo Rotblat are no longer with us…   In the US, they have however been  replaced by an impressive cohort of younger scientists — people who have  done a spell in government, or in high-tech industry, and who serve regularly as consultants to the  Pentagon  or on advisory committees.

In the UK, there are fewer younger scientists who can match the credentials and expertise of their US counterparts in providing independent expertise. The reasons for this transatlantic asymmetry aren’t hard to find. In the US, senior staff shuffle between government jobs and posts in (for instance) the Brookings institute whenever the administration changes.  There are always some who are ‘out’ rather than ‘in’.  The UK, in contrast, doesn’t have a ‘revolving door’ system;   government service is still generally a lifetime career.  For this reason, and because secrecy is more pervasive, discussions, especially of defence issues, tend, in the UK, to be restricted to a closed official world.

But defence and arms control are a diminishing part of the agenda for today’s ‘citizen scientists’.  The topics I’ve mentioned in this talk span all the sciences. They are far more open, and often global.   There’s less   demarcation between experts and laypersons.  Campaigners and bloggers enrich the debate.   But professionals have special obligations to engage — as the ‘atomic scientists‘ did 50 year ago — by involvement with NGOs or campaigning groups, via blogging and  journalism, or through political activity.  Scientists, whatever their expertise, shouldn’t be indifferent to the fruits of their ideas.  Their influence may be limited, but they  should try to foster  benign spin-offs –  commercial or otherwise. They should  resist, so far as they can,  dubious  or threatening applications of their work, and alert the public and politicians to perceived dangers.  And I think  a special social responsibility lies on those in academia or who are self-employed  entrepreneurs — they have more freedom than those in government service or in industry.

Prominent scientists can act  influentially as global citizens, independent of any affiliation.   For instance,  John Sulston,  who in the 1990s  led the UK  part of the human genome project, now campaigns to provide   affordable drugs for Africa.  The great American ecologist EO Wilson,  argues eloquently for the preservation of biodiversity.   And of course many less-known figures are active in NGOs, and government agencies, and  in global organisations  like the World Health Organization and the IPCC.

Finally, I wanted to comment as a Cambridge academic — about what we here can do here.  We are privileged to have some influence over successive generations of students, who will go on from here  to careers in any walks of life, and not just  in the UK. I think we should try to do more  to sensitise them, while they are here, to the issues which will confront them in the rest of the century.

And at a senior level, we can do more to ensure a richer network of contacts between academia and policy makers.  This is the aim of our hosts this evening, the Centre for Science and Policy. Among this new Centre’s  various activities are seminars for politicians and senior officials, and the ‘Policy Fellows’ scheme whereby individuals from Whitehall, business,  and NGOs  spend a week here, learning about a range of projects relevant to their brief.

And I want to float a further  suggestion:

There is one distinctive activity in the US which has no parallel here. This is the  JASON group. It was founded  in the 1960s with support from the Pentagon. It involves top rank academic scientists — in the early days they were mainly physicists,   but  the group now embraces other fields. They’re bankrolled by the Defense Department, but it’s a matter of principle that they choose their own new members.   Some — Dick Garwin and Freeman Dyson, for instance — have been members since the 1960s. The JASONs  spend about 6 weeks together in the summer, with other meetings during the year. It’s a serious  commitment– and they get paid for it. They have security clearance and they tackle applied problems and analysis  from a ‘menu’ suggested partly  by them and partly by the US government.

 The sociology and ‘chemistry’ of such a group hasn’t been fully replicated anywhere else, — the nearest, which I read about recently, was the elite ‘Unit 8200’ in Israel.    I think we should try to replicate it  not for the military but in civilian areas– the remit of, for instance DECC, DEFRA, or  the Department of Transport. There have been some experiments — for instance BP twice, to my knowledge convened groups for studies of climate-related science.

Perhaps we in Cambridge could spearhead a trial along these lines.   The challenge  is to assemble a group of really top-ranked scientists who enjoy cross-disciplinary discourse and tossing ideas around.   It won’t ‘take off’ unless they  dedicate substantial time to it — and unless the group addresses  the kind of problems  that play to their strengths .

Anyway. that’s  a suggestion, perhaps for the Centre to consider

In conclusion, what I’ve tried to illustrate this evening, in a rather piecemeal way,  is just this. Unprecedented  pressures confront the world, but there are unprecedented  prospects too.   But despite the downsides, there seems no scientific impediment to achieving a sustainable world, where all enjoy a lifestyle better than we in the west do today. (And there’s a widening  gap between what science allows us to do and what it’s prudent or ethical actually to do).  Politicians need the best ‘in house’ scientific advice in forming their policies. But, more than that,  these choices should be part of a wide public debate, and  such debate must  be leveraged  by  “scientific citizens” — engaging, from all political perspectives, with the media,  and with a public attuned to the scope and limit of science. They  should aim to lift long-term global issues higher  on the political agenda, where the urgent usually trumps the important.

And I’ll give the very last word to the great Peter Medawar:

“The bells that toll for mankind are — most of them anyway — like the bells of Alpine cattle. They are attached to our own necks, and it must be our fault if they do not make a cheerful and harmonious sound.”

Scientists collect data; analyse it; try to make sense of it all; and publish their findings in a scientific journal. Right? Well yes, but it’s not always as simple as that.

The way in which science is conducted has changed dramatically over the past couple of decades. Many scientists now collect terabytes of data, which would be impossible to include in a printed scientific article. And so today, the printed article acts more as a summary of the underlying data.

As a hypothesis-driven process, scientific research does not always deliver the anticipated results. Hundreds of experiments, some that are more informative than others, may be necessary to uncover a new phenomenon in science. Some experiments are conducted to optimise experimental conditions – to uncover the appropriate conditions in which to carry out further experiments. Others show no effect, producing so-called ‘negative data’. Such experiments often fail to make the final cut in the published manuscript and the data remain undisclosed. These issues are part of the Society’s current study on Science as a Public Enterprise.

New mechanisms for sharing data allow experiments to be replicated to verify or refine scientific findings. Data sharing prevents duplication of experimental findings and accelerates the scientific process. Making datasets reusable allows data to be ‘repurposed’: imagine temperature measurements made by the Met Office reused and recycled to study the effect of temperature on wildlife; or linking drugs that affect the activity of genes to chemical databases to accelerate drug discovery. Greater openness with scientific data may also lead to interdisciplinary collaborations and attract investment from a wider range of organisations.

But how can data be more openly accessible? There is a range of software developers who are working on projects designed to help scientists make the most of new technologies – bringing more data to more people. A few will be covered below but it may well be that this becomes a fertile field and one which should be closely watched.

Software developers at Digital Science are part of a growing community developing research tools to facilitate data sharing and day to day laboratory management.

One of their products, FigShare, was created by Mark Hahnel during his PhD at Imperial College. He became aware of the duplication that ensues from a lack of data sharing. He created FigShare out of frustration, allowing scientists to publish all of their data – even those data sets that would not make it into a publication – in an “easily searchable, shareable and citable manner”.

Figures, datasets, images, videos are uploaded onto a researcher’s profile on the FigShare website. The data are permanently stored online under a Creative Commons license which allows others to copy and distribute work provided credit is given to the original data creator. Persistent identifiers assigned to each piece of uploaded data enable the data to be cited even if it hasn’t been published in a scientific journal.

Data can be shared on social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter and other users can leave comments or send a message to the data creator. These features stimulate scientific exchange and can help with data interpretation and even foster scientific collaborations. Data can also be tagged so that other researchers can easily search for data of interest. FigShare also recommends links to similar sets of data much like recommendations on Facebook or iTunes.

The application is very much aimed as a tool for the scientific community. The metadata (‘data about the data’) provided will help an audience who already have a working knowledge of the subject but a non-specialist audience may struggle with its interpretation. There is no peer-review of the uploaded data and therefore no control over their quality. The system works on the basis that a researcher would not want their name associated with questionable data that could be easily verified by other scientists using FigShare. But these concerns may be outweighed by the prospects of more openness in science.

Digital Science is developing other tools aimed at assisting the researcher in their daily activities, with a particular focus on text mining, research tools and science metrics. In particular, Altmetric.com, a new piece of software due to be launched in 2012, directly tackles the need for an alternative measure of scientific impact in the digital age. It aims to capture the attention or real life immediate impact of research (as opposed to its citation in scientific journals) by monitoring social media, reference managers and mainstream media including international newspapers and science magazines. Such alternative measures of scientific impact may help provide the incentives and rewards needed to stimulate greater openness in science.

The importance of open science and data sharing is not a new issue. The 17^th century saw a major revolution in the way science was communicated with the invention of the scientific journal. The resulting increase in sharing of knowledge and expertise played a major role in accelerating scientific discoveries. This method of communicating scientific results was well suited to communicating scientific research in the 17^th century but may be less so in today’s digital world with multiple media outputs.

Platforms such as those developed by Digital Science, Mendeley or Mekentosj, provide solutions that bring laboratories into the digital age. They provide user-friendly, intuitive applications to keep on top of laboratory management and publication organisation, and invaluable tools to increase scientific exchange, simplify scientists’ daily work and promote greater openness in science. Just like the invention of the scientific journal revolutionised science in the 17^th century, these new platforms for communication and data management may place us on the verge of another open science revolution.

The Royal Society would be interested in hearing from individuals and software developers who know of or have developed similar packages aimed at promoting greater openness with these kinds of tools. Please contact us at sape@royalsociety.org.

The prospect of opening up scientific data to a wider audience is likely to have a profound influence on the progress and economics of science. Medical and drug trials are areas where increased sharing and reuse of data could have an enormously beneficial impact, with the potential for research to be faster, more efficient, and less expensive. But these areas of research, among others, often involve personal or private data of the subjects involved in the trials. When data is personal, how is it best to balance privacy of the individual with transparency of the research as a whole?

Kieron O’Hara investigates the challenges of striking the right balance between the privacy of the individual and the transparency of government. There are useful parallels that can be drawn to the creation of open science, which encourages the responsible release of scientific data. The philosophy behind efforts to pursue transparency in science is not merely based on moral assertions that transparency is generally a good thing, but instead the focus is on how to better exploit the economic value of data already in existence. The government envisages significant opportunity for commercial and social entrepreneurship as a result of large-scale release of government data in a reusable form; the same argument can be made for the scientific development made possible from the release of reusable scientific data. Direct economic benefit would come from development of new technologies, as well as the more indirect development of the UK’s knowledge economy and STI sector as a whole.

A central point that O’Hara highlights in his report is that privacy and transparency are not mutually exclusive ideals; there are many instances in which the two are not even in opposition. A main example of how improving one reinforces the other is the importance of retaining public confidence in transparency programmes, which necessitates protecting the privacy of individuals. While this is a valid and important point, there remain many instances where the two are in conflict.

A simple yet powerful method of resolving such conflicts is the anonymisation or pseudonymisation of datasets to avoid information being linked to a particular individual. Although promising, there are technical limitations to current anonymisation and pseudonymisation techniques. Further research into the level of risk posed by deanonymisation is necessary, which may also help to indicate ways of improving current protection techniques. O’Hara suggests that the imperfections of anonymisation must therefore be carefully considered before releasing individual datasets to the public.

Current protection techniques include the aggregation of data to less specific groups and the perturbation of data, which effectively adds noise to the dataset. The downside of these extra protections is that both detract from the potential value of the information contained in the dataset; the more altered the data the better the protection of the individual’s privacy, but the less its economic value.

Further issues arise in that even with these protective measures, deanonymisation has been shown in certain cases to be remarkably easy. O’Hara describes a case in the US where obtaining just three variables (date of birth, gender, and ZIP code) from an anonymised population register allowed 97% success rate of identification of over 50,000 voters. However, O’Hara maintains that “there is cause for optimism that sophisticated anonymisation, perturbation and pseudonymisation techniques will continue to allow the release of valuable data for use by the public, and the management of a negligible risk.”

These technical issues raise separate legal issues with the use of the term ‘anonymisation’. In common usage the term implies that the subject is guaranteed to be unidentifiable, which is proving to be an unrealistic expectation. There have been suggestions that the term be dropped from legal vocabulary due to these outdated connotations. As ‘anonymisation’ of data at best makes exact identification of an individual difficult rather than impossible, terms such as deidentifying, scrubbing, or disguising have been suggested to use in its stead.

The answer to these problems may lie in a reassessment of what individuals believe to be a reasonable risk. Current methods used to protect privacy can make deanonymisation extremely costly, time-consuming, and difficult, which will deter the vast majority of potential privacy breaches. Differential privacy is the solution that makes use of this principle. This would employ statistical standards to investigate whether an individual’s risk of identification would be significantly increased by their data appearing in a given dataset. Although ‘significant’ is a subjective term, this would at least allow individuals to make an informed decision about what level of risk they are content with.

This may go some way towards striking an acceptable balance between privacy of individuals and transparency of research, although it could be that deeper investigation into the development of protection techniques and their associated risks is necessary before concrete decisions can be responsibly made.

Chaired by Martin Porter, Managing Director, Edelman | The Centre

& Geoffrey Boulton FRS, University of Edinburgh

Wednesday, December 14, 2011 from 12.00 to 17.30, followed by a drinks reception

The Centre is hosting a discussion of the upcoming Royal Society study entitled ‘Science as a public enterprise: opening up scientific information’.

The study focuses on the exchange of information among scientists and other interested groups in an era of increasingly data-heavy science. Principles of replication and re-use, that have been fundamental to the progress of science, are at risk when abundant data is not managed properly.  The Royal Society is exploring what a more open science could do to return science to these principles.

This workshop will provide an opportunity to explore differing national attitudes and interests in scientific information across Europe and address together one of several pressing questions: what incentives should scientists be offered to share information;  what infrastructure and legislation is necessary to balance demands for greater openness in science with confidentiality, security and commercial concerns; and where can European states co-ordinate approaches to opening up scientific research, where can they not? As the European Commission develops its own Digital Agenda, and specifically their inquiry into scientific information in the digital age, these are key questions for policy makers in Brussels and all European nations.

To register, please send an email with ‘European Open Science’ in the subject field and stating clearly your name and organisation, meet@thecentre.eu

The event will take place at:

Edelman | The Centre, Avenue Marnix 22, B-1000 Brussels,

www.thecentre.eu/place

Full programme:

12.00 -14.00        Lunch and networking

14.00 – 15.00      The challenge and the promise of data-heavy networked science

Chair: Professor Geoffrey Boulton FRS FRSE OBE, Chair of the Royal Society working group on Science as a Public Enterprise. Introducing the study and chairing a panel discussion.

Speakers to include:

Dr Christoph Best – Google (previously EBI)

Dr Wouter Los – LifeWatch

15.00 – 15.30  Break

15.30 – 16.30      A qualified openness: commercial value and confidentiality

Chair: Roger Elliott, ALLEA IP group

Speakers to include:

Professor Joseph Straus – Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law

Dr Lorenza Saracco – Policy Officer, Research infrastructure, DG RTD

16.30 – 17.30      Building the European research infrastructure to support open science

Chair: Geoffrey Boulton

Speakers to include:

Professor Laurent Romary – Max Planck Digital Library, Council of the International Text Encoding Initiative

Dr Konstantinos Glinos – Head of Unit, GEANT and eInfrastructures, DG INFSO

Dr Donatella Castelli – D4Science project

17.30 – 18.30      Drinks reception