CIRES' Center for Science and Technology Policy Research
Mission. CIRES' Center for Science and Technology Policy Research conducts research, education, and outreach to improve the relationship between societal needs and science and technology policy.
The Center was initiated within CIRES in the summer of 2001 as a contribution both to the CIRES goal of "promoting science in service to society" and to the University of Colorado's vision of establishing research and outreach across traditional academic boundaries.
The Center is a response to an increased demand by public and private decision makers for "usable" scientific information. Such information can serve decisions that have a scientific component or decisions about the structures, organizations, and priorities of science itself. At the same time, scientists have become increasingly interested in research problems that require the input of more than just a single traditional discipline. Science and technology policy research provides a mechanism to reconcile these two closely related - but not identical - trends. Such research focuses on "problems" and "decisions" to provide information that is useful and relevant in decision making. The focus on problems and decisions sets science and technology policy research apart from other efforts to integrate knowledge across traditional disciplines.
Because problems and decisions are not bounded by any discipline or set of disciplines, science and technology policy research is necessarily integrative across the physical, social, and biological sciences (as well as other fields, including the humanities). The specific decision or problem that is the focus of inquiry dictates the sort of knowledge that is relevant to the research. By linking integrative science with the needs of decision makers, science and technology policy research can serve a valuable role in helping the research community better focus its efforts on issues of importance to society, and decision makers can more effectively incorporate scientific and technological advances into their decision processes. An explicit focus on science and technology policy research can contribute needed expertise and perspective in the quest for scientific and technical knowledge usable by decision makers.
Our long-term vision is to "conduct research, education, and outreach to improve the relationship between societal needs and science and technology policies." The Center fulfills its mission through research, outreach, and education within the following three themes:
- Evaluating the relationship between societal needs and science and technology policies.
- Providing new policy alternatives for science and technology policy decision makers.
- Developing tools for science and technology policy decision making.
Accomplishments, Impacts and Products >
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