Democracy in the making – 4S/EASST 2020 Conference Panel

3S Chair Jason Chilvers and Jan-Peter Voß (Berlin University of Technology) are advertising a Call for Papers for an open panel on “Democracy in the making” to be held at the 4S/EASST conference in Prague, 18-21 August 2020. They invite submissions which reconstruct how ‘the demos’ is enacted in practice and how this is supported by…

Fully-funded PhD positions in 3S

We currently have two competition-funded PhD positions available in the 3S Research Group, to start in September 2020. Both of these positions offer full funding for home and EU students and would be based in the School of Environmental Sciences at UEA, Norwich, UK. Tom Hargreaves and Gill Seyfang are the academic supervisors on the project…

New paper: Participation in Transition(s)

In a new open access paper in the Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning Jason Chilvers and Noel Longhurst set out a new framework that reconceives public and civil society engagement in energy transitions as co-produced, relational and emergent. The paper speaks to the urgent challenge of transitioning to sustainable low carbon energy systems and debates…

New book ‘Remaking Participation’ out now

3S Chair Jason Chilvers’ new book Remaking Participation: Science, Environment and Emergent Publics is published this week by Routledge. The volume, co-edited with Dr Matthew Kearnes (School of Humanities and Languages, University of New South Wales, Australia), develops ambitious new theoretical perspectives on public participation with science, technology and the environment and offers important practical…

3S WP 2012-15 Hulme – What sorts of knowledge for what sort of politics? Science climate change and the challenges of democracy

There are two propositions about knowledge society and policy-making which – if true – are troubling in the context of climate change. First policy-making seems ever more reliant on knowledge and yet science seems to deliver knowledge (at least in this context) with ever less certainty or authority. And second and here I quote Dan…

Science, Trust and Public Engagement – exploring future pathways to good governance

The Science, Trust and Public Engagement project comprised a major review of public concerns about the governance of emerging science and technology through a meta-analysis of 17 UK public dialogues sponsored by Sciencewise on subjects ranging from nanotechnology and synthetic biology, through to low carbon energy and geoengineering of climate change. This analysis identified five…