Background
Emerging governance frameworks associated with innovation and commercialisation of technology are beginning to address not only risks to human health (and to some extent the environment) as has been the case in the past. Recent discussion has focused on the evolution of benefit-risk paradigms that balance the weight of evidence from the perspective of both putative benefit assessment, as well as risk assessment. In addition, novel frameworks are needed to address socio-economic and ethical issues, as well as issues related to health and environmental impacts. The current proposal will build on research currently funded under the ”society” stream, which has focused on interdisciplinary approaches to understanding societal responses to innovative technologies (LRI-S1), and developing new governance frameworks to accommodate risk-benefit analyses (LRI-S2).
Even within the context of traditional approaches to risk governance, policy translation of scientific evidence is fraught with difficulty. Policy makers may be non-specialist in a particular area of interest, and thus scientific evidence needs to be articulated in a form accessible to non-specialist audiences. Extending the risk analysis paradigm to incorporate benefit, as well as socio-economic and ethical assessment, will likely require the generation of additional/supplementary evidence in a form that is amenable to policy translation.
Objectives
This project is looking to identify the type and form of policy evidence required by policy makers to operationalize benefit-risk approaches to technology innovation. The project's objectives are to:
1. Map current gaps in existing approaches to developing scientific evidence upon which to base concrete and actionable policy outcomes.
2. Examine emerging evidence requirements (and barriers to policy translation of this evidence) associated with benefit assessment.
3. Stipulate requirements in terms of an evidence base for factoring in socio-economic assessments to policy.
Scope
Review of existing policy regarding technological innovation relevant to the chemical sector.
Related links
Download here the full version of the RfP LRI-S3.
