Communicating Policy-Relevant Science

Government exists, in part, to provide public goods that otherwise would not be generated by the market (Taylor 1987). It does so by making laws and allocating resources that ostensibly better the lives of citizens. In so doing, legislators and other government officials can draw on any information or input they prefer—nothing requires them to turn to science or even to citizens. Yet, it is clear that both science and citizens play a role. The former is apparent from the investment that governments around the world put into science. For example, as is the case in many countries, the United States Government supports a National Science Foundation (NSF): “an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 ‘to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense...’” In 2012, the NSF annual budget was roughly $7 billion, and it funded approximately 20% of all federally conducted research at universities (see www.nsf.gov/ about). Even more money is allocated for research by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which invests about $31 billion annually for medical research (see http://nih.gov/about). Furthermore, in 1863, the government established the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the mission of which is to provide “independent, objective advice to the nation on matters related to science and technology” (see www.nasonline.org/aboutnas/mission). The latter purpose—that is, that citizens impact public policy—has been demonstrated by an extensive body of scholarship that reveals policy shifts in direct response to changing citizens’ preferences (for a detailed review, see Shapiro 2011). What remains unclear, however, is how scientific research influences policy by either directly affecting legislative decisions and/or indirectly shaping citizens’ preferences to which legislators respond. To what extent does “science inform the policy-making process?” (Uhlenbrock, Landau, and Hankin 2014, 94). This article does not explore the direct impact of science on policy. Instead, the focus is on a prior question of how science can best be communicated to policy makers and citizens. This is a challenging task; as Lupia states: “[s]ocial scientists often fail to communicate how such work benefits society...Social scientists are not routinely trained to effectively communicate the value of their technical findings” (Lupia 2014b, 2). The same is true of physical scientists who often are “fearful of treading into the contested terrain at all” (Uhlenbrock, Landau, and Hankin 2014, 96, citing Opennheimer 2010). These apparent failures, in turn, have caused lawmakers to question the value of social science funding (Lupia 2014b, 1). The approach is twofold. First, I discuss basic realities of how individuals form attitudes and make decisions. I do not delve into the details of information processing; however, I highlight key factors that are critical to understand if one hopes to effectively communicate science. Second, given how humans form opinions and make decisions, I discuss ways that science can be communicated more effectively to lawmakers and the public.1