Precautionary Science-policy Relations : from 'Prediction and Control' to 'Early Warning and Monitoring'

During the last decade, policymakers, advisors and researchers have been involved in studying and developing alternative ways to cope with complex policy issues in the field of environmental and health protection. The confrontation with the hazards of human economic activities and the experience of a series of intractable controversies on their remediation or anticipation acted as catalyst for institutional initiatives, f.i. in relation to the application of the precautionary principle, that aim, to a certain extent, at re-shaping science’s relations with policy making. Two aspects are prominently present in most of the proposals for change : the explicit treatment of scientific uncertainty and the involvement of stakeholders and civil society in the policy processes. However, there does not seem to be unanimity regarding the types of uncertainty that should be dealt with and how this should be done and neither on the exact role of broader participation in a precautionary framework. In this contribution, we will explain how both the analysis of controversies on environmnetal health issues and the study of the characteristics of the knowledge base on these issues urge to consider the aspects of ‘uncertainty’ and ‘wider involvement’ as inter-related. These analyses suggest there is a need to involve stakeholders and representatives of different societal perspectives, already in the upstream phase of assessing environmental health risks. Their role in those processes of dialogue would then mainly consist of discussing, together with a diversity of experts, how environmental health issues are framed and how choices and assumptions can influence assessments. This should, at least, lead to increased transparency about choices and assumptions made and increased insight in the plurality of scientific information, and, at best, to the development of more robust knowledge. It can be considered a necessary element of a process of change, in which science would find a new role of ‘early warning and monitoring’ instead of ‘predicting and controlling’.

CRAYE Matthieu; 

2006-10-19

DG Joint Research Centre, Institute for Environment and Sustainability

JRC33628

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC33628,