Conference The “Ins and Outs” of Science: From Science to Policy and Back

When: June 25-26, 2020
Where: University of Groningen, The Netherlands

Speakers

• Hanne Andersen (Head of Department Science Education, University of Copenhagen)

• Huub Dijstelbloem (University of Amsterdam and Senior Research Fellow at the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR))
• Naomi Ellemers (University of Utrecht)

• Aurélien Goutsmedt (University of Paris)

• Miles MacLeod (University of Twente)

• Magdalena Malecka (University of Helsinki)

• Marcel Timmer (Director of the Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) and University of Groningen)

• Cisca Wijmenga (Rector, University of Groningen)
  
  

Organizers
Chiara Lisciandra and Jan-Willem Romeijn

Theme
Research-based policy-making typically cuts across institutional and disciplinary boundaries. It requires scientists to go beyond their specific domains to create new knowledge; and also, to be able to communicate their findings and methods both to scientists from other disciplines and to non-academic partners such as policy-makers.

In this conference, we will focus on some of the main institutional and methodological aspects of research-based policy-making, and how they relate. We will consider both how scientific knowledge inform policy-making for policy purposes; and how science policy draws on scientific expertise to design science policy measures.

Questions that we will address are, among others:

• How does academic knowledge inform policy-makers?
• Are the research goals that scientists pursue in academia suitable to policy purposes?
• Do scientists and policymakers might need "translators" in order to transfer their knowledge from one domain to another?
• What is the role that evidence plays in informing (science) policy-making?
• What are some of the main institutional challenges that research-based policy face?
• Which science policy measures favor or interfere with research-based policy project outcomes?

The goal of this conference is to bring together scientists and policy-makers to reflect on the theoretical and institutional strategies that facilitate scientific exchange as well as on the main challenges. Beyond keynote lectures and contributed papers, we will engage the participants in a roundtable discussion on the institutional conditions that might favor the work of research-based policy teams and help them to realize their potential.

Format
Keynote + Invited Speakers / Lectures from Scoop / Contributed papers / Roundtable

Partners
Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Centre for Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE), Sustainable Cooperation (SCOOP)