Paul Dufour

On the Shape of Science Advice to Come?

By Paul Dufour

NRC President Arthur Carty has lots of new friends and critical new challenges. It was gratifying to see his appointment by the prime minister as national science adviser, as well as the challenging mandate for Dr Carty in the Speech From the Throne and its subsequent response. The establishment of the position in Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) follows from calls for such a position from various parliamentary committees and other groups over the past several years.

Canada will now have a formal, high-level designated channel that can assist in priority-setting, engage with Cabinet colleagues and the research communities in domestic matters affecting future directions of science and research, and of course, look at how to bring the benefits of our R&D to bear on the challenges of the developing world.

Carty’s appointment comes almost 40 years to the month after another National Research Council president, CJ (Jack) Mackenzie was asked to respond to a request by then Prime Minister Lester Pearson on how best to organize government science. That request was made following the publication of the Glassco Royal Commission on Government Organization. It suggested the need for a central scientific bureau (managed by Treasury Board) and a national advisory council, much like today’s Advisory Council on S&T (ACST) that Carty has been asked to breathe life back into.

Mackenzie had no small experience in this matter. As defacto national science adviser to the Canadian government during WWII and the post-war period, he had direct access to the Cabinet as well as to his counterpart science advisers in the UK and US. Those were heady days when science was “mainstreamed” into the war and reconstruction efforts and bureaucratic turf issues were fairly easy to resolve.

Mackenzie, in his January 1964 report to Pearson, made some key points that hold water today (even if they were not all implemented). Among these: getting the right people is more important than drafting an ideal organization; the new scientific bureau should be established in the PMO, not Treasury Board as had been suggested; and, a more effective federal panel on S&T (borrowed from the US model of the time) should bring together heads of federal agencies involved in major scientific programs. This was a precursor perhaps to the current CSTA.

We’ve been around the block several times with all manner of experiment on science advice to and for government — some good, some bad, some just plain ugly. Today, readers will be right to ask: if S&T funding in the past seven years has been on the upswing without a national science adviser all these years, why create such a position today? Let’s ponder some considerations, besides the obvious that the PM has a strong inbred understanding of the need for R&D and science, in addition to the view that the responsibility and legacy of any generation is to pass on an enhanced level of knowledge.

First, somewhere in the growing cacophony of advice and expert counsel that surrounds public policy is a comfortable medium that places scientific advice in its appropriate station with other forms of public policy input. The PM will not limit his counsel to advice from his science adviser, his parliamentary secretary for science and small business and Industry minister. The complexity of decision-making requires many sources of advice. But how this advice is interconnected to the decision-making process is a key element to ensuring that science advice matters.

After all, the general public is becoming leery of the dissonance between the rapid advance of knowledge and the inability of our social structures to address emerging challenges effectively. Just think SARS, water quality and safety, mad cows, avian flu, farmed salmon, climate change, bioterrorism, AIDS, missile shields and manned space missions and you get the picture. Linking and exchanging information among the various S&T advisory bodies and expertise both at the federal and provincial levels is, and will continue to be, paramount.

Second, anticipating change is a growing challenge. How does one keep track of issues of a scientific and technical nature that are just now appearing on the horizon, while preparing the way for appropriate action or policy response? Some foresight is required if a science adviser is to be effective here. One mechanism has been the Carnegie Group of Science Ministers and Science Advisers from the G-8. The group meets twice annually to exchange knowledge on issues such as bioterrorism, big science, intellectual property rights, and international cooperation with the developing world. A parallel group of G-8 research council heads also meets annually, but there is little linkage between the two.

It may be time to reconsider this format to broaden the connections, as well as ensuring a greater input to the G-8 Summit meetings by adding a stronger linkage to the developing world’s emerging economies, such as India, Brazil, China and South Africa. These, and other developing economies, have significant S&T assets and are key partners for us. The PM’s statement that Canada should devote no less than 5% of its R&D investment to knowledge-based approaches to development assistance is a significant signal of leadership in this area, both at home and globally. His charge to the national science adviser to help bring the benefits of Canadian research and technology to bear on challenges in the developing world will require a mobilization of the Canadian knowledge community that is probably no less important than a similar “projet de société “experienced by Jack Mackenzie in the post WWII environment.

Increasingly, we are in a risk environment. Communicating science and its impacts effectively is an art form. As Tony Blair argued in his elegant Science Matters speech, “This isn’t about Government and science. It’s crucially about society. We need stronger, clearer ways of science and people communicating. The dangers are in ignorance of each other’s point of view: the solution is understanding them”.

Some of this communication needs to take place in more structured fora that can provide technical and social impact assessments of S&T issues. A Canadian Academies concept has been proposed to do this, but it remains on the shelf. Dusting it off might be a useful response to assist our citizens and policy makers who are looking at how to better understand the complex dynamics of the society-science interface.

These, and other considerations that science advice in this country will face, all require strong leadership, commitment, partnerships and patience. Are the knowledge and policy-making communities up to the task?

Paul Dufour is the associate editor of Outlook on Science Policy.