Written evidence submitted by

People’s Knowledge, Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience, Coventry University (COM0056)

1. The relationship between researchers and the public is undergoing a seismic shift. Three examples of this are:

• Patients giving lectures to doctors

Ordinary people’s experience of disease allows them to become “expert patients”, of which the UK now has many thousands. They improve medical research outcomes by being partners in it.

• Subsistence farmers teaching sustainable agriculture to the Department for International Development

Non-literate Indian farmers travel to share their evaluation of rural development plans with the UK MPs, leading to a dialogue and policy change.

• Young Refugees commissioned as researchers by the Mayor of London.

Members of the UK charity RefugeeYouth use peer-to-peer research, providing government with insights into the mental health problems facing young refugees resettling in the capital.

2. In the light of these collaborative process of research, we should see public trust in science and research in the context of whose voice, priorities and knowledge controls the research agenda.

3. In the background to this inquiry, the 2014 BIS report on Public Attitudes to Science, is quoted as finding, “persistent misconceptions about how scientists work, concerns about how well science is regulated.” Such public sentiments arise, not merely from a deficit of understanding on the part of some among the public, but rather because much of society feels excluded from the process of knowledge production. We suggest that a greater emphasis on the involvement of the public in science and in the governance of research will provide a better basis for science in the UK.

4. However, the shift that had begun in the 2000’s away from the top-down dissemination of research and towards a two-way processes of engagement appears to have gone into reverse. Recently, much public engagement appears to have been little more than exercises in intelligence-gathering for the top-down implementation of pre-determined policies. The government-funded bodies and charities who often commission such exercises do not yet appear to recognise that the world’s most intractable problems can only be tackled by building collaborations and mutual understanding between people with different perspectives.

5. What is termed public engagement by most programmes funded through the UK Research Councils often merely involves the dissemination of “facts” by experts to passive recipients, rather than risk a questioning of the authority of the expert. Yet, as the three examples above demonstrate, people without formal scientific training can bring expertise from their life experience that:

a) is capable of showing blind spots in research programmes or gaps in government policies;

b) leads to findings and results that are more immediately relevant and actionable; c) ensures accountability of science to the public, thus increasing trust in science

6. We argue that the abandonment of previous commitments to two-way public dialogue about science not only risks missing opportunities to develop better research, but also leads to a greater polarisation technocrats and everyday people.

7. The full potential of research will be unleashed only when government, universities and other research institutions recognise that everyone, from whatever background, is capable of contributing insights towards the production, application and questioning of knowledge. For inspiration, we should look to countries such as the US and Canada, where such approaches as public science, participatory action research and community-based research have survived the teething stage, reached the White House (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J17uBahTdDE) and are now inspiring a new generation as well as informing international research programmes

8. In December 2015 we launched People’s Knowledge to bring together researchers and communities to develop a deeper approach to engagement based on genuine dialogue between scientists and the public, collaborative inquiry and a democratic approach to science and research.

9. We endorse the recommendations of the recent AHRC Creating Living Knowledge Report (Facer & Enright 2016). These are:

1: Developing the infrastructure needed to create high quality collaborative research partnerships

2: Recognising that time is to collaborative research what a supercomputer is to big data

3: Taking explicit steps to mitigate the risk of enhancing inequalities through collaborative research and partnerships

4: Developing sustainable institutions and practices able to meet the desire for public learning

We suggest that the Inquiry recommends their full implementation.

April 2016

Reference

Facer K & Enright B 2016 : Creating Living Knowledge: The Connected Communities Programme, community-university relationships and the participatory turn in the production of knowledge. AHRC. See: https://connected-communities.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Creating-Living-Knowledge.Final_.pdf