Responsible governance in science and technology policy: Reflections from Europe,China and India

This Issues and Opinions Essay provides insights on developments and challenges related to responsible governance in the field of science and technology (S&T) across Europe, China and India. The Essay presents an overview of policy debates and some key public policy documents in these three geopolitical areas, exploring how responsibility is viewed and outlined in the policy domain. Considerations on the range of processes and actors affecting the relationship between science and society in China and India are also presented. Finally, the Essay introduces ‘responsiveness’ as a possible area for comparative research work on responsibility in S&T and relevant policy collaboration amongst the three regions.     

Sustainability science: accounting for nonlinear dynamics in policy and social–ecological systems

Resilience is an emergent property of complex systems. Understanding resilience is critical for sustainability science, as linked social–ecological systems and the policy process that governs them have the capacity for nonlinear dynamics. The possibility of nonlinear change in these systems means that there is an inherent degree of uncertainty in social–ecological systems and the policy process. Abrupt, nonlinear change often results in social and/or ecological surprises that create tremendous challenges for environmental management. Thus, it is necessary to improve environmental management via a suite of mechanisms that have the capacity for adaptation. This paper suggests how we can move closer to achieving this goal through an overarching focus, including reformed and new law, adaptive management and adaptive governance, scenario planning, and leading indicators.     

Styles of Science and Engineering: The Case of Early Long‐Distance Telephony*

Abstract In the historiography of the relationship between technology and theoretical science, electrical communication plays an important role. It was by means of mathematical reasoning based on the new theory of electromagnetism that it was first understood how to extend the range of telephony by inserting self‐inductance in the line. This paper surveys developments from around 1880 to 1910, at a time when ‘pupinization’ had become a reality and mathematical physics an accepted part of the research strategy of a few advanced companies in the electrical industry. It presents the confrontation of two different styles of engineering science, on the one hand there was the empirical approach and on the other an approach more mathematical in nature. This paper offers some reflections on the nature of ‘counterintuitive technologies’ and the general relationship between science, engineering and technology.     

Materials inspired by mathematics

Our world is transforming into an interacting system of the physical world and the digital world. What will be the materials science in the new era? With the rising expectations of the rapid development of computers, information science and mathematical science including statistics and probability theory, ‘data-driven materials design’ has become a common term. There is knowledge and experience gained in the physical world in the form of know-how and recipes for the creation of material. An important key is how we establish vocabulary and grammar to translate them into the language of the digital world. In this article, we outline how materials science develops when it encounters mathematics, showing some emerging directions.     

Survival Science: Crisis Disciplines and the Shock of the Environment in the 1970s1

The 1970s mark a critical departure point in the history of science. The rise of the environmental crisis prompted not just new avenues of scientific inquiry but also the integration of scientific expertise into complex interactions with politics and society. This paper investigates the history of the new ‘crisis disciplines’ that emerged in response to explicit fears that the world was on the verge of ecological collapse. Crisis disciplines – a term coined by the conservation biologist Michael Soulé – engage in the urgent and reactionary pursuit of solutions to pressing environmental problems and the evidence scientists bring to bear on their work. Crisis disciplines involve acting ‘before knowing all the facts’, and therefore constitute ‘a mixture of science and art, and their pursuit requires intuition as well as information’. Combined, diverse crisis disciplines constitute a new kind of ‘survival science’, which emerged in the 1970s.     

Developing social impact assessment guidelines in a pre-existing policy context

Few jurisdictions have translated internationally agreed social impact assessment (SIA) principles into statutory provisions. Governments and regulatory bodies tend to provide developers with high-level frameworks, or require that social impacts be ‘considered’, without specifying how this is to be done. In Australia, this lack of clarity leaves all parties uncertain about requirements for SIA. The New South Wales (NSW) Government’s 2017 release of the SIA guideline for State-significant mining, petroleum and extractive industry development represents an attempt to clarify requirements and provide guidance. In this paper, we describe the process of bringing this guideline to fruition from the perspective of being directly involved in its development, and highlight the challenges involved in integrating leading-practice principles into the state’s pre-existing policy framework. While the guideline represents a significant advance in policy-based SIA guidance, some aspects leave room for improvement. The real test of the guideline’s impact will lie in its influence on SIA practice in NSW, and ultimately in social outcomes for communities affected by resources projects.     

Tapping into hidden potential

University departments are going to great lengths to convince potential new recruits that materials science and engineering is for them. In addition to the traditional showcase ‘Open Day’ for pre-university students, outreach staff are facilitating hands-on workshops, problem-solving seminars, and research ‘tasters’ for a far wider audience. High school students are shown how materials science spans traditional subject divides, while teachers receive tips on how to integrate materials-oriented examples into the curriculum. The idea is to show would-be electrical engineers, doctors, and chemists that a degree in materials science could lead to an equally exciting and fulfilling career developing optical materials, biomedical implants, or sensor technology.As the academic year begins, students enrolling at universities worldwide have a treat in store. There is a course on offer that could explain how to cut the cost of street lighting, improve the mobility of an aging population, reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill, speedup electronic communication, and detect the first signs of a biological terrorist attack. No surprises, then, for guessing that this course is materials science and engineering. But teenagers versed in the language of physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering may not have made the connection. And there in lies the root of a possible recruitment problem.     

The ‘Industrial Enlightenment’ and technological paradigms of the modern steel industry

Scientific knowledge is crucial to opening up new possibilities for major technological advances. When did science become important for economic development? The steam engine was the earliest major science-based invention. Conversely, the role of science has not been regarded as important in the innovations leading to modern steelmaking. In addition, how did science begin to play an important role? Mokyr focuses on the ‘Industrial Enlightenment’, which has its origins in the Baconian program of the seventeenth century. However, the role of science is often not regarded as important in the emergence of modern steelmaking technology. This paper examines the process through which modern steelmaking emerged and clarifies the role of science and ‘Industrial Enlightenment’. This discussion is also important in determining how to view the role of science in economic development and in considering ‘the Great Divergence’ and ‘the Great Knowledge Transcendence’. In addition, the examination of this paper will show how to create radical innovations that are completely different from existing paradigms, and how to create new technological paradigms to overcome difficulties such as the recent Covid-19 pandemic and environmental problems. When much time elapses between scientific and technological advances, the role of science is often not regarded as important and sensational innovations such as the Bessemer process are emphasized. However, this is not a proper evaluation. The role of ‘Industrial Enlightenment’ on the supply side must also be recognized as significant in the emergence of modern steelmaking technology.     

A comparative study of communal practice: Assessing the effects of taken-for-granted-ness on citation practice in scientific communities

Summary Building on the findings of recent ethnographic studies of scientific practice, I develop and test theory about the impact of taken-for-granted-ness on citation practice in scientific communities. Using data gathered from special issues of scientific journals I find support for the hypothesized differences in the practices of natural and social science communities. Post hoc analysis uncovers evidence of a third pattern of citation practice associated in part with engineering and technology research, and evidence that organization studies and strategic management communities tend to employ extreme versions of social science citation practices. I discuss the implications of the study for our understanding of communities of practice, for our beliefs about differences between the branches of science, and about science as a productive enterprise.     

Physicochemical regulation of biofilm formation

This article reviews the physical and chemical constraints of environments on biofilm formation. We provide a perspective on how materials science and engineering can address fundamental questions and unmet technological challenges in this area of microbiology, such as biofilm prevention. Specifically, we discuss three factors that impact the development and organization of bacterial communities. (1) Physical properties of surfaces regulate cell attachment and physiology and affect early stages of biofilm formation. (2) Chemical properties influence the adhesion of cells to surfaces and their development into biofilms and communities. (3) Chemical communication between cells attenuates growth and influences the organization of communities. Mechanisms of spatial and temporal confinement control the dimensions of communities and the diffusion path length for chemical communication between biofilms, which, in turn, influences biofilm phenotypes. Armed with a detailed understanding of biofilm formation, researchers are applying the tools and techniques of materials science and engineering to revolutionize the study and control of bacterial communities growing at interfaces.     

Use invention of a chemical substance

The Japanese Patent Law defines the patentable subject matter and considers the following types or categories of inventions ‘a thing (substance)’, ‘a method’ and ‘a method of producing a thing (substance)’; however ‘use’ as a category is lacking. Although a discovery per se is unpatentable, the discovery of a new use of a product is practically patentable in a claim within the category of ‘a thing’ or ‘a method’.Two or more use inventions are deemed to be identical if those uses are substantially undistinguishable from one another with respect to ‘the range within which they are applied’, ‘means of application of the use’ and ‘time of application of such use’, even when the intended uses are different. An invention of use in the field of pharmaceutical products is patentable in the form of a claim: ‘substance or composition coupled with the indication of the intended pharmaceutical use’. Under the ‘Guidelines for practice in examining pharmaceutical inventions’ two or more inventions of pharmaceutical uses of one product are regarded as being identical if (A) the pharmacological effects are based on the same or closely related pharmacological action, or if (B) they are substantially undistinguishable in ‘the range of applications’. Actually, the guideline is not practised so strictly, particulary with respect to the standpoint (B).Problems are also left unsolved in Japan in pharmaceutical use inventions with respect to the entity of the patent right granted and to the preservation of right and further how to judge infringement, due to the fact that the subjects of application are human beings.For solving these problems some means can be contrived: ‘method of curing disease’ is deemed to be patentable subject matter, or a generic claim is granted on the first use and a specific claim is granted on the second use. Also in Japan various opinions exist as to whether the so-called second use should be patentable subject matter or not and in which form the second use, if patentable, should be patented.     

Ethnography re-engineered: the two tribes problem

Does ethnography have anything to offer to the engineering community or the computer development community? Theoretically, yes, it does. Ethnography can provide the skills and tools that will help us understand user needs and preferences, which can then be embedded into software and hardware. Still, it is difficult to find any discussion of commercial hardware or software products in which ethnography demonstratively played a decisive part, which has led some to argue that ethnography, as it is currently practiced in the computer development community, would never have any practical impact. Bader and Nyce [Bader, G. and Nyce, J.M., 1998. When only the self is real: theory and practice in the development community. Journal of Computer Documentation, 22 (1), 5–10] raised this issue a decade ago, and argued that ethnographic knowledge appeared to be largely unintelligible and inoperable to the computer development community. To date, this debate has not been taken much further, and the results of ethnographic research continue to be published in the HCI/Human Factors literature. The issues Bader and Nyce raised a decade ago have however not gone away: to what extent can ethnography make a practical contribution to the computer development community? This article picks up this discussion, re-examines the original arguments and commentary, adds a Koenian view of engineering epistemology to the analysis, and concludes that we appear to require a much improved understanding of engineering epistemology, to support interdisciplinary communication. Building on this foundation, what may furthermore be necessary is to perform an ethnographic operation twice, not just once: essentially, it is argued, it is necessary to build a kind of ethnography that takes the ‘interpretation’ of research findings to one’s clients as seriously as it does the interpretation of what goes on in a particular, ‘targeted’ workplace for end-users. By providing this kind of ‘double’ translation and interpretation, it would be possible to ‘deliver’ ethnographic findings to the engineering communities in a form they find intelligible, simply by doing what ethnography does best: the discovery and interpretation of what is taken to be self-evident and logical.     

Synergy or separation mode: the relationship between the academic research and the knowledge-transfer activities of Korean academics

What factors influence the relationship between the academic research and the knowledge- transfer activities of academics, in particular in ‘catch-up’ countries like South Korea? To address this research question, after first conducting a critical review of existing theoretical and empirical studies, we put forward a conceptual framework based on the twin concepts of ‘synergy’ and ‘separation’ modes, together with a number of accompanying hypotheses. These hypotheses, along with others that emerged from subsequent interviews, are then tested using various statistical models. After taking into account the specific characteristics of scientific communities in rapidly catching-up counties such as Korea, we find that not only are individual characteristics (such as the gender, age, discipline, and patenting activity) of academics significantly related to the generation of a ‘synergy mode’ (i.e. a positive relationship between academic research and knowledge-transfer activities) among academics, but so too are a number of contextual characteristics (e.g. laboratory size and type of university).     

Scientometrics: State-of-the-art

In this presentation we argue that the core research activities of scientometries fall in four interrelated areas: science and technology indicators, information systems on science and technology, the interaction between science and technology, and cognitive as well as socioorganisational structures in science and technology. We emphasize that an essential condition for the healthy development of the field is a careful balance between application and basic work, in which the applied side is the driving force. In other words: scientometrics is primarily a field of applied science. This means that the interaction users' is at least as important as the interaction with colleague-scientists. We state that this situation is very stimulating, it strengthens methodology and it activates basic work. We consider idea of scientometrics lacking theoretical content or being otherwise in a 'crisis-like' situation groundless. Scientometrics is in a typical developmental stage in which the creativity of its individual researchers and the ‘climate’ and facilities of their institutional environments determine the Progress in the field and, particularly, its relation with other disciplines. These aspects also contribute substantially to the reputation of scientometrics as a research field respected by the broader scientific community. And this latter point is important, both to let quantitative studies of science and technology take more advantage of an academic environment, as well as to keep it innovative and thus attractive in terms of applications at the longer term.     

How the psychological theory of action identification can offer new advances for research in cognitive engineering

We present the psychological theory of action identification as a framework for a more in-depth understanding of a human operator's cognitive activity in the scope of cognitive engineering. A comparison of theoretical models and findings shows that both frameworks are founded on a similar theory of cognitive control based on an ontological viewpoint of means–ends relationships with the proposal that an individual mentally ‘navigates’ or ‘moves’ through a hierarchical arrangement of these relationships. However, whilst cognitive engineering begins the analysis from a viewpoint on affordances coming from the external work domain, the action identification theory starts from a viewpoint on action identities internally attributed to actions by individuals. We show that the conceptual articulation of these two approaches leads to confirming qualitative findings on an agent's cognitive activity and to proposing general cognitive principles that would explain a single agent's mental navigation through the abstraction hierarchy.     

Reliability Engineering Practice in the Light Duty Dodge Ram Truck Chassis Program

In this paper, we demonstrate how we set up and executed an integrated reliability engineering process with the engineering team in the Light Duty (LD) Dodge Ram (DR) Truck chassis program. Organizationally, the LD DR chassis team consists of core engineering groups and supporting representatives from other related disciplines. The reliability engineer is a member of the team and he is the reliability advocate and leader. The integrated reliability engineering process was customized and implemented in the LD DR chassis program. Many of the tools developed by the company corporate quality office, such as design failure modes and effect analysis (DFMEA), design verification plan and reporting (DVP&R), and finite element analysis (FEA), were used in supporting the reliability engineering process. An array of technical enablers such as Test Matrix and ReliUp were also developed for supporting the implementation of the reliability engineering process. In the execution, the reliability engineer led the engineering team to set up reliability targets, develop reliability work plans, facilitate up‐front design analysis, review and integrate reliability test planning. The reliability engineer also set up the failure reporting, analysis and corrective action system (FRACAS) and managed reliability growth with the team. From the implementation, we have learned several things: (1) an integrated engineering team is crucial in order to develop a product better, quicker and cheaper; (2) a good team leader is the key to product reliability; (3) a capable reliability engineer is the catalyst to a reliability engineering process; (4) the best culture in which to achieve reliability is the delicate balance between ‘inside‐out’ and ‘outside‐in’; and (5) achieving reliability is far more important than measuring reliability. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Humans,robots and values

From the 1950s onwards the threat automation posed to human labour became a persistent theme in popular science fiction [26], [1]. Authors explored what it meant to be human, by contrasting us with hypothetical robots. Such robots were generally seen as coming into existence centuries into the future. In the last decade the rate of progress in robotics has accelerated way beyond popular expectation. The timescales of Asimov and Dick look generous, whereas the dystopian near future of ‘Player Piano’ [71] seems grimly real. This anxiety is not limited to novelists. Even Stephen Hawkins told the BBC:

“The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.” [11].

Robotics is made possible by advances in mechanical engineering but, above all, by informatics. In this essay we look at how ideas derived from informatics allow us a more precise view of what differentiates us from robots and, on the other hand, how information science can give us a deeper insight into the nature of human labour. Having gained this understanding, we can go on to examine what sort of threat robots really pose to us, as humans.     

Regeneration of the limb: opinions on the reality

Whenever the topic of re-growing human limbs is posed for discussion, it is often argued that ‘if a newt can do it, then so can we’. This notion, albeit promising, is somewhat like watching a science-fiction film; the individual components are currently available but we are far from realizing the complete picture. Today’s reality is that if we are faced with a limb-severing injury, any regenerative attempt would endeavour to accelerate the pace at which the tissue heals to a clinically relevant/functional state. The science of limb regeneration can be approached from three different angles, developmental biology; regenerative medicine; and tissue engineering. This opinion piece describes how each approach can be used to understand the concepts behind regeneration, how far each approach has advanced and the hurdles faced by each of the approaches.     

Characterising product-service systems in the healthcare industry

Since the 1970s, marketing and innovation management communities have been investigating how to incorporate customer-desired functions into new product and service designs. These wide-ranging enquiries have shed light on the impact of lead-user engagement in new product development, demonstrated ways to examine service production and delivery, such as the use of ‘line of visibility’ in service blueprints and the modelling of ‘service encounters’, and have created new terms such as ‘value co-creation’. Despite these efforts, recent reviews have identified the lack of an holistic approach to new product-service system (PSS) development. This deficiency needs to be rectified, especially for complex PSS developments in regulated industries such as healthcare, as often there are multiple stakeholders posing conflicting priorities to the development team.This paper describes a novel PSS characterisation approach that supports the early-stage new PSS development process. The approach is originated from eleven healthcare case studies, involving twenty-five new products, services and PSSs. Following the methodology of action research, further cases are selected for the application of the approach to a new product, service or PSS concept in facilitated workshops. Initial implications of employing this approach in three cases are discussed in this paper.