As part of the Water Institute's WaterTalks lecture series, Janet Hering, director of the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science & Technology (Eawag) and professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne presents, "Linking Eawag’s Research to Policy and Practice."
Coffee and light refreshments provided.
Key topics covered
In his 2007 classic “The Honest Broker”, Roger Pielke defined four roles for scientists in public debate (pure scientist, science arbiter, issue advocate and honest broker of policy alternatives) that he considered to be legitimate. He also defined a fifth role (stealth advocate) that he considered as a misrepresentation of scientific input. In recent calls for greater participation of scientists in society and in politics, these distinctions seem to have been lost.
Drawing on experiences with applied research projects and stakeholder engagement at Eawag, I hope to provide a basis for discussion of the following questions:
- How can we, as scientists, avoid playing the role of “stealth advocates”?
- To what extent can (or should) use-inspired and/or demand-driven research be pursued within an academic setting?
- How might “knowledge brokers” facilitate the joint definition of research questions between academic scientists and stakeholders?
Speaker bio
She has degrees in chemistry from Cornell and Harvard Universities and a PhD in oceanography from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program.
Her research interests include water resources and water infrastructure management, the biogeochemistry of trace elements, and water treatment technologies for the removal of inorganic contaminants from potable water.