Science and technology for the people? On the framing of innovation in policy discourses in India and in EU

Abstract

In 2010 both India and Europe launched new strategies focused on innovation, for economic growth and for addressing societal challenges: the Decade of Innovation from the Indian Government and the Innovation Union from the European Union. This piqued our interest in investigating how these two political entities have envisioned the concept of innovation, particularly in studying and comparing how they have focused on people, both as final beneficiaries (and thus principal legitimisers) of policy actions, and as actors themselves in the innovation process. Per contra we found, in institutional documents, very different descriptions of how to adequately realise citizens' involvement, spanning from the abiding reference to people's inclusion in the Indian case to the varied discourses on public engagement in EU, down to the passive role accorded to citizens in some Expert Groups reports. The comparison between the understandings of innovation (and innovators) in the two contexts can enlarge and refine the argumentative and metaphoric repertoire of science communicators. Further, it can form the basis of a mature and shared debate on the role that knowledge production and innovation policies can and should play in the public governance of science and technology.

Scientific temper: towards an alternate model of science-society relationships

“…Since then multiple deliberations have taken place regarding the terms 'public', 'understanding', 'participation' and 'science' alongside the development of frameworks like Responsible Research and Innovation [Chakraborty & Giuffredi, 2019;Chakraborty, Baumann & Hultman, 2020], and public participation in science (once again, mostly in the Global North), which now largely recognise publics as key stakeholders in science. Specifically, the participation model envisages a multi-directional form of communication, which is characterised by two-way conversations between not only scientists and non-expert publics, but also amongst different kinds of publics themselves [Trench, 2008].…”

“…First, most existing models have been primarily designed for dominant, white, cis-heteropatriarchal, ableist, Anglophone, and Eurocentric contexts, actors and cultures [Finlay et al, 2021;Orthia, McKinnon, Viana & Walker, 2021] and might not translate to other marginalised milieus uniformly. Scholars from a wide range of Global South contexts and disciplinary backgrounds have described how acknowledging diverse lived experiences, incorporating 'local' contexts and histories, and treating indigenous knowledge systems as valid forms of knowledge can all help broaden the scope of knowledge-making and sharing practices, find newer ways to democratise science, and establish more nuanced ways of co-producing knowledge with different stakeholders [Chakraborty & Giuffredi, 2019;Finlay et al, 2021;Orthia et al, 2021;Kankaria, Chakraborty & Manna, 2023].…”

“…In this short essay, we critically reflect on one such key concept associated with science communication in India: scientific temper 1 [Mahanti, 2013;Raza, 2015;Chakraborty & Giuffredi, 2019;Chakraborty, Raman & Thirumal, 2020], a term often attributed in India's science policy circles to its first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru [Nehru, 1946, p. 512], and which has remained an enduring component of Indian science policies and educational strategies till date. We argue here that scientific temper is a novel approach to appraising science-society relationships, which is distinct from the existing Global North models that dominate most theorisation and analyses within science communication research, and argue in favour of its inclusion among these established analytical frameworks of science communication.…”

Bridging the Discursive and Material Dimensions of Europeanity and Europeanisation

“…However, Queirós and Carvalho (2019) outline the tension between the pursue of 'excellence' in European science, and that of the 'integration' of the 'peripheral' countries. Furthermore, constitutive outsides within this scientific culture are nothing less than the European citizens, often represented in policy as passive and rarely described as innovative knowledge-producers themselves (Chakraborty & Giuffredi, 2019).…”

Social participation in science: Perspectives of Spanish civil society organizations

“…Similarly, “open science” can be understood as “transparent and accessible knowledge that is shared and developed through collaborative networks” (Vicente-Saez and Martinez-Fuentes, 2018: 23). Greater public involvement in science has also been promoted by the European Commission program Horizon 2020 (2014) and many governments, such as those of Australia (Halpin, 2012), Latin American countries (Smith et al, 2014), and India (Chakraborty and Giuffredi, 2020).…”