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Why should we promote public engagement with science?

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 16:52 authored by Jack Stilgoe, Simon J Lock, James Wilsdon
This introductory essay to a special issue of Public Understanding of Science (guest edited by Jack Stilgoe, Simon Lock & James Wilsdon) looks back on the two decades since the journal was launched. Drawing on the invited commentaries in the special issue, we can see narratives of continuity and change around the practice and politics of public engagement with science. Public engagement would seem to be a necessary but insufficient part of opening up science and its governance. Those of us who have been involved in advocating, conducting and evaluating public engagement practice could be accused of over-promising. If we, as social scientists, are going to continue a normative commitment to the idea of public engagement, we should therefore develop new lines of argument and analysis. Our support for the idea of public engagement needs qualifying, as part of a broader, more ambitious interest in the idea of publicly engaged science.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

Public Understanding of Science

ISSN

0963-6625

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Issue

1

Volume

23

Page range

4-15

Department affiliated with

  • SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2014-03-14

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2014-03-14

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