ABOUT
"Science is more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, our environment, and our quality of life than it has ever been before... [and] many of the challenges that science and technology will help us meet are global in character"
President Barack Obama's speech to the Speech to the National Academy of Sciences, April 27, 2009
The science and technology (S&T) enterprise plays an increasingly central, often essential, role in almost every aspect of our life. It is therefore critical to understand how we may be able to best realize the potential of S&T in improving the human condition, underpinning economic and social development, supporting human endeavors, and in promoting international relations. At the same time, we must also be cognizant of, and address, the societal concerns that often result from advances in S&T.
Public policy plays a critical role in mediating this interface between S&T and society: it should aim to enhance the positive contribution of S&T to society while recognizing, even anticipating, and mitigating, its adverse consequences.
Accordingly, the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program (STPP) engages in research, teaching, and outreach on how
- science and technology influence public policy;
- public policy influences the evolution of science and technology;
- the outcomes of these interactions affect well-being in the United States and worldwide; and
- the processes involved can be made more effective and their outcomes more beneficial (at present and in the future).
With this broad backdrop, STPP activities will center around a number of thematic areas where public policy plays an important role, with a particular emphasis on their international implications:
1. S&T, Energy, and Environment: Access to energy underpins human and economic development, while access to a clean environment is critical for human well-being. Energy and environment are also intimately inter-linked, given the large impact of energy extraction, conversion, and use on the environment, although other human activities — industry, agriculture, forestry, etc. — also affect the environment. Key issues of interest include U.S. and global innovation budgets and programs, policies to develop and deploy technologies to promote energy access and energy security, mitigate climate change, adapt and reduce vulnerability to climate change, and to reduce other environmental and health impacts from industrial activities.
2. S&T and Security: Technology is an integral part of the international security arena, both by virtue of its role in weapons systems as well as monitoring of programs and activities, whether as part of a compliance regime under international treaties or for general observation. Areas of focus include the disposition and management of nuclear materials, nuclear weapons programs, nuclear energy, arms-control treaties and programs, technology and terrorism, military technologies, and weaponization of space.
3. Emerging Technology Clusters:
- Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs): ICTs are transforming almost every aspect of our day-to-day lives, thereby opening up opportunities for positive contributions to society. On the other hand, the fast-changing and pervasive nature of these technologies also poses some worrisome questions. Studies in this area will include access to ICTs (the "digital divide"); how to enhance the contribution of ICTs to economic and human development and to positively transforming political and democratic processes; privacy, cyber-security and other societal concerns; intellectual property rights in digital world; and market power/competition in cyberspace.
- Biotechnology/Medical Technologies: It is said the 21st century may well be the century of biology and biotechnology. Advances in biology are likely to yield a host of technologies that will make contributions not only to human health, but also to other areas such as agriculture and energy. As in other areas, the rapid advances in biological and medical technologies open up a range of societal concerns — in this case, issues such as use of genetic data, ethical/religious concerns over techniques such as cloning, and patenting of genes. This area will focus on such topics while also exploring how these technologies could advance human well-being and development.
- Nanotechnologies: While nanotechnology offers great opportunities for developing new materials as well as mechanical, electronic, and other devices, it is also raising some concerns over potential health impacts (from nanoparticles, for example) or from the release of other nano-engineered devices and systems. This area would explore the potential risks as well as benefits of this emerging technology.
4. S&T and the Economy: Technological change is the engine of economic growth in industrialized countries and can underpin socio-economic development in developing countries. This area focuses on the interactions between the S&T enterprise and the economy in both groups of countries and the ways in which it S&T contributes (and can contribute) to socio-economic development globally.
In addition to these thematic areas, STPP will also focus on a number of critical cross-cutting issues:
1. S&T Processes, Institutions, and Governance: A fundamental understanding of the processes and institutions which define the shape and conduct of the S&T enterprise is key to improving the scope and nature of this enterprise. Therefore, we explore issues such as the role of S&T in public-policy formation, relationship between actors and their shaping of S&T processes and institutions, governance of, and public participation in S&T processes, and the role of regulation in shaping S&T processes with the expectation that this will contribute to making these processes more efficient, democratic, responsive to societal concerns, and therefore ultimately more effective.
2. Innovation: Innovation is key to translating knowledge into technologies and products that have an impact on the society and economy, especially in today's globalized world. But the process of innovation is complicated, requiring a range of activities — R&D, product development, entrepreneurship, marketing — and concomitantly numerous actors and institutions that couple to/link with each other. Public policy has a particularly important role to play in the early phases of the innovation process (R&D), deployment, as well as the institutional context. Therefore a study of innovation processes and how to improve them will have relevance to most of the thematic areas as well as advance the general understanding of innovation.
3. S&T Education: Human resource development is key to the S&T enterprise and its ability to contribute to socio-economic development and meet societal challenges such as energy and environment. Therefore, science and engineering education must be able to attract and appropriately train students from diverse backgrounds so as to make them better practitioners and researchers, while motivating them to meeting the challenges facing society. This is the broad motivation for our study of science and engineering education in a globalizing world and an exploration of the ways to improve it in response to modern day challenges.
STPP was founded in 1976 by the late Dr. Harvey Brooks who had been the Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics Emeritus at Harvard's Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences (DEAS) where he had served as Dean from 1957–1975. He had also been the Benjamin Peirce Professor of Technology and Public Policy Emeritus at the Harvard Kennedy School and widely recognized as the senior statesman of science and technology policy studies in the United States.
Dr. Brooks was succeeded as Director of STPP in 1986 by Dr. Lewis Branscomb, formerly Chief Scientist at International Business Machines (IBM) and Director of the National Bureau of Standards and now Aetna Professor of Public Policy and Corporate Management Emeritus. Dr. Branscomb was succeeded by Dr. John P. Holdren from University of California, Berkeley, in 1996. With Dr. Holdren's appointment as President Barack Obama's senior advisor and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), I succeeded Dr. Holdren in April 2009. It is a privilege and an honor to follow in these footsteps.
Venkatesh "Venky" Narayanamurti
September 2009
