Public Engagement and Global Governance of Science: Beyond Instrumentalism

Public engagement in science is frequently sought after by a wide range of actors such as research funders, technology assessment agencies, scientists, policymakers, and patients. A key aim, expectation, and assumption are that public engagement will allow for new technologies to align with societal values, be socially just and broadly relevant to patients, and help democratize the means and the ends of scientific knowledge production.

In the February issue of OMICS, Carter et al (2023) make a contribution with an analysis of public engagement gaps in large-scale biology research, namely, in bioengineering and synthetic biology. They draw in part from the example of gene drives that have broad implications for ecology, planetary health, and sustainable food systems. The authors call for critical reflection on the ways in which social sciences and humanities research can be incorporated by the integrative biology community.

Carter et al (2023) caution, however, that how public engagement is designed, and the ends it serves, also matter: “If investment in public engagement is purely transactional, over time, publics' trust in the value of participation in science will likely erode.”

The search for scientific solutions to and public engagement for planetary health challenges such as climate emergency, digital health, and COVID-19 cannot be conceived at the level of nation-states only. Public engagement in these large-scale biology fields calls for a critical sociotechnical lens at the level of global governance and international relations as well (Yetiskin, 2022).

We have discussed and underlined in OMICS in 2020, amid the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the concept and global governance of planetary public goods (PPGs), such as essential medicines, COVID-19 vaccines, and personal protective equipment, which ought to be accessible by the whole of society (Von Schomberg and Özdemir, 2020). The latter article is a kind reminder to be mindful of hyperinstrumentalism and transactional approaches to global governance and international relations that can be barriers in universal access to PPGs.

In a recent analysis, Manahan and Kumar (2021) have alerted on an emerging shift from multilateralism to multistakeholderism in global governance, which has implications for hyperinstrumentalism in scientific practice. Sovereign nation-states are key decision makers in the case of multilateralism, and together search for solutions to global issues affecting their publics, for example, pandemics and other planetary health challenges. Manahan and Kumar (2021) underline the significant role played by “governments (‘duty bearers’) who have been elected by their people to represent them, and have an obligation to act in the public interest” in global governance by multilateralism.

In contrast, with multistakeholderism, the distinctions between (1) the sovereign nation-states that represent public interest and (2) the actors that represent nonpublic interest are blurred, (Manahan and Kumar, 2021), and they are considered equivalent decision makers in global governance. The disarticulation of decision making in global governance away from sovereign nation-states and public interests is not necessarily without effects on public engagement in science because science does not exist in a vacuum in institutions and nation-states (O¨zdemir, 2021).

Science requires protection of and commitment to public interest in local and global governance of science (O¨zdemir and Springer, 2022). The transactional turn in global governance by way of multistakeholderism is worthy of reflection to ensure that public engagement in science is critically informed on its means and the ends it serves at multiple scales, in the nation-state, global governance, and international relations. To the extent that science is never just science but embedded in broader social, cultural, and political contexts, as discussed in an editorial in Science (Thorp, 2020), the importance of a critical lens on public engagement in science and its global governance becomes clearer.

I welcome your future articles for peer review in the journal.