Climbing down from the Ivory Tower

Last week, Nicholas Kristof wrote a column in the New York Times lamenting the absence of University professors from practical policy debates. I agree with just about everything he wrote. Subsequently, a number of University-based scholars and scientists pointed out that (1) a lot of professors are trying to be more involved in real-world problem solving; and (2) there are powerful institutional constraints keeping faculty from getting involved in policy discussions to which they could bring significant expertise. Both of these things are also true.

Rather than re-hash any of those arguments, which have been made by others, I thought I would discuss some ways in which I or my colleagues have tried to emerge from ivory tower-dom and engage with real world problems. Kristof mentions direct engagement with the public via social media in his column, but there are several other ways for academics to get involved. If you are not an academic scientist, it’s important to be aware that these types of efforts are going on; if you are an academic scientist, it’s an excellent idea to get involved with one of these efforts! Please keep in mind that my direct experience is primarily with environmental and sustainability science; this may not be reflective of the experience of those in the biomedical or physical sciences, or the humanities. Also, when I use the term ‘scientist’, I am referring to someone who has a Ph.D. in a scientific discipline, including the social sciences.

Here are some ways in which I have seen scientists engage with decision-makers and the public, in an attempt to bring their knowledge to bear on important problems:

1. Work with professional communicators. Let’s face it, not all of us scientists have the skills to communicate well in a non-academic setting—and perhaps this shouldn’t be expected of us. After all, we don’t expect professional writers or speakers to also be competent scientists. If you are fortunate to be at a large research university, as I am, you probably have a team of professional communicators working at your institution whose job it is to package the science you do into relevant reading for lay audiences, and to disseminate it to the public and to decision-makers. It is definitely a good idea to get to know these people. Some scientists also cultivate relationships with professional science writers for print or online publications.
2. Cultivate relationships with local or regional decision-makers. Not all important policy or management decisions are made at the national level. The actions of city councils, local planners, and state legislatures have enormous impact on environmental and social systems, for better or for worse. Many of my colleagues work closely with their neighborhood organizations, local elected officials, or state legislative leaders to provide scientific information that can help inform their decisions.
3. Work on synthesis or assessment documents. Periodically, national and state governments commission panels of scientists to summarize the state of the science around a given issue so that it can inform their decisions. Examples of these types of processes include the IPCC reports (at the international level), and the National Climate Assessments (at the national level). Many other reports are authored at the state level as well. The explicit goals of these assessments are to bring science to bear on policy, and they are written in accessible language, without disciplinary jargon.
4. Do engaged research. Engaged research posits scientific knowledge as something that is co-created between scientists and stakeholders or other decision-makers. In other words, people who have a real-world problem to solve work with scientists to define the research question, design a study or model to address it, and work through the process of hypothesis testing together. This can be an enormously powerful tool for generating knowledge that is scientifically sound and also relevant to the needs of decision-makers. Engaged research methods are used in a broad range of the natural and social sciences, and are a proud tradition at Land Grant institutions, which were established by Congress to conduct research that benefits the public.
5. Leave academia. Some top-notch scientists feel that academia is too far removed from real-world problem solving, and they join nonprofit organizations or the public sector. In these positions, they may be more free to advocate for particular ideological positions about which they feel strongly (the non-profit sector), or have the chance to influence how important policies or management actions are carried out (the public sector). Of course there are trade-offs—scientists who leave academia may sacrifice some of the significant intellectual freedom that the University affords.

I should point out, as some of my fellow academics did in responding to Kristof, that not a single one of these efforts would ‘count’ towards tenure and promotion in most research universities. Doing any one of these things wouldn’t necessarily count against you—unless you did them at the expense of generating peer-reviewed publications and grant proposals. In other words, if you want to engage with the real world, you have to do it on your own time (or get smart about integrating these efforts with your publishable research—that’s why I like option 4 above).

Also: the lack of scientific relevance for policy decisions in the U.S. is a complex systems problem involving (at least) academia, the media, the educational system, and the policy process. Reforms are needed in all of these sectors if we want to increase the relevance of science to real-world problems.