6 research outputs found
Public Participation in Science and Technology Policy: Consensus Conferences and Social Inclusion
No full textThis study looks at the National Citizens’ Technology Forum (NCTF), a modified version of the consensus conference, which took place in March, 2008 in six cities across the U.S. to understand how inclusive these methods of public participation are in practice. The study focuses on two of these sites. Inclusion of participants was defined in terms of presence, voice and being heard. Transcripts of the audio-visual recordings of the proceedings were the main data of analysis. By focusing on the talk within these deliberative forums, the study looked at how the rules of engagement and status (ascribed and achieved) differences between participants can affect inclusion. The analysis did not reveal any substantial effects of ascribed characteristics on deliberation. Facilitation and the presence of expertise among the participants were found to effect inclusion and equality among participants. These findings suggest that organizers and facilitators of deliberative exercises have to be reflexive of their role as well as aware of the group dynamics. The results also address the larger questions within science and technology policy like the role of expertise and the public in decision making, the institutional design of participatory exercises, and their relation to the political culture and the policy process
Memories and Motherhood in the Rhythms of Ugandan Computing
No full textBased on ethnographic research in the computing communities of Ugandan universities, we advance a feminist and decolonial critique of the dominant chronopolitics of globalizing technologies. Our analysis starts with participants recounting their childhood memories of growing up in rural poverty under the shadow of rebellion wars. We show how the future promises of computing make sense in reference to this past. The same chronopolitics of pitching the past against the future is used by the global computing and donor development industry, and Uganda’s governing regime, which disguises the symbolic and physical violence of the evacuated present. In coping with the precarities of the present, we show how female computing researchers build enduring “near futures” through work that corresponds to the historical and symbolic role of Ugandan women in the domestic realm. And yet the chronopolitics of global computing syncopates with that of “near futures.” Women’s communal roles are written into computing and computing is made possible and doable in Uganda through the gendered logics of care practised in the present. The paper thus contributes to an expanding literature on computing in Africa, by providing a temporal analysis that recognizes women’s roles in more substantive ways
Learning to build institutional capacity through knowledge-based partnerships between universities and industry: lessons for engineering ecosystems from computing in Kenya
No full textTwo of the main challenges facing engineering ecosystems in Africa are 1) enabling universities to produce more high-quality research, and 2) creating more linkages between universities and industry to ensure that research is used, and that highly skilled workers have appropriate knowledge and training. But how can we understand knowledge-focused linkages between universities and industry in relation to other capacities and capacity building efforts within engineering systems? What are the challenges and benefits of building these linkages, and what processes and practices lead to lasting partnerships? We address these questions for the case of computing and information technology in Kenya. Our analysis comes from a three-year project which created and evaluated industrial studentship and fellowship programmes that involved partnerships with companies. University–industry linkages can be understood as an aspect of institutional capacity: a concept that refers to a range of capabilities – important across engineering ecosystems, but especially for universities – that enables production of high-quality and locally relevant research and contributes to the professional development of graduates. Other interrelated aspects of institutional capacity include mechanisms to support acquisition of funding; norms of mentorship, peer support, and scholarly communication; and structures that enable researchers to balance research and teaching. Our data reveal that while some of these capabilities are weak or missing in the Kenyan computing ecosystem, intermediary organisations can act as knowledge brokers to build linkages and facilitate learning between universities and industry. However, these linkages must be built alongside other dimensions of institutional capacity, especially social components like mentorship and peer-to-peer learning
Policy Pathways, Policy Networks, and Citizen Deliberation: Disseminating the Results of World Wide Views on Global Warming in the United States
No full textAtlanta Conference on Science and Innovation Policy 2011"World Wide Views on Global Warming involved 44 citizen deliberations in 38 countries, focusing on questions of climate change policy addressed at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December 2009 (COP15). Sponsors and organizers pursued numerous policy pathways to influence the COP15 negotiations, and this paper examines the success of such strategies in the U.S. context.National Science Foundatio
