The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has announced This Friday the creation of the National Scientific Advisory Office that will report to the Presidency of the Government. At an event held in A Coruña to awaken the interest of girls in careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, Sánchez spoke that, faced with challenges such as climate change or the coronavirus pandemic, the Government needs the help of The science. The socialist leader has assured that this new office “will help create bridges between the Government and regional or local governments, and the talent that exists in universities to improve the evaluation of these public policies.” In the same Royal Decree in which the scientific advisory office has been announced, the creation of a Department of Cultural Affairs has been published, which will be led by a general director and will also report to Moncloa.
The purpose of this office is to apply science to the development of better public policies and would serve as support for administrations that wanted to use knowledge to optimize their work. It would work on several levels. One would be to use the knowledge that already exists, as was done during the pandemic, with scientists informing politicians about how the coronavirus was spread and the best ways to prevent its spread. A second step would have to do with the use of the science of behavioral economics, which poses situations that can occur in reality, but within a controlled environment in which there are no risks if something goes wrong.
Thus, one could test, for example, the effect of a universal basic income on workers or whether its existence would reduce business scruples about replacing humans with machines. A third level would consist of carrying out a type of clinical trial, like those used to test drugs, in the real world, with a potential for greater benefit, but also some risks. In this way, a new educational strategy could be compared by comparing it with the one that works best among those already implemented.
The idea that the Government turns to scientists to guide its political decisions is not new. It is one of the fundamental functions, for example, of the Spanish Institute of Oceanography, which helps make decisions about fishing. In other countries there are also examples of this type of offices. In the United Kingdom, the Government Office for Science performs this task, and countries like Estonia have used European cohesion funds to incorporate scientific advisors into ministries to apply their knowledge to improve public policies. “There is nothing new, but there is the idea of being able to generalize this approach, and plant a seed in Moncloa so that each ministry cultivates the idea of science for politics (science for politics),” says Jorge Barrero, director of the Cotec Foundation for Innovation, an organization that already in 2021 advocated for an office similar to the one announced today.
Given the possibility that this office could be seen as a step towards technocracy, Barrero affirms that “no human activity can be reduced to scientific evidence” and that “it is not about replacing politics with science,” but rather adding elements to the policy that can improve it. The greatest knowledge about how to develop public policies is found in the ministries, but, as happens in large companies that have R&D departments, there is an ingredient of open innovation and being permeable to external contributions that add value.
The new office is in the same line of rapprochement between science and politics that began in 2021, when the Congress of Deputies and the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) reached an agreement to establish the Office of Science and Technology —known as Office C— to offer scientific and technological advice and develop connection activities between science professionals and deputies.
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