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Science–policy research collaborations need philosophers

Nature Human Behaviour (2024)Cite this article

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First, not all philosophers are ethicists. Philosophical expertise includes expertise in conceptual work: drawing out the necessary and sufficient conditions to secure desired conclusions given the concepts introduced in the statement of an argument. This work is especially valuable in teasing apart solvable — albeit difficult — problems in evidence-based policymaking from those that are impossible to solve. For instance, as part of an international collaboration on the epistemology of evidence-based policy6, we targeted the basic mechanics of decision-making during ongoing empirical research to cut to the heart of what it means for the policymaking process to proceed in light of current science. This enabled us to identify root causes of disagreement in policymaking: for example, placing different importance on different kinds of evidence, miscommunication or misinterpretation of evidence, or misunderstanding of the policy process. We concluded that without a particular type of transparency — transparency of reasoning — it is impossible to determine whether anything has gone wrong in specific episodes of evidence-based policymaking based only on studying outcomes of the policymaking process (R.H. et al., unpublished).

We also identified upcoming challenges in research within the biosecurity space by teasing out which residual questions for future research extracted during a survey of the literature were themselves formulated in such a way as will require philosophical expertise to solve. For instance, many of the extracted questions were identified as involving a give-and-take between values (for example, principles, ideals or morals). Merely allocating funding towards additional empirical research is insufficient in these cases, as answering questions concerning a give-and-take of values involves some amount of reasonable disagreement, must be negotiated among relevant parties, and cannot be settled by any empirical method. How to identify when disagreement is reasonable and how to properly incorporate values into science and policy are questions discussed by philosophers, generally in the research subfield known as ‘values in science’. Importantly, the philosophical work to be done is only effectively integrated with empirical research through active collaboration: scientific research and philosophical analysis can only adequately answer crucial questions at the science–policy interface in tandem.

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Acknowledgements

As fellows in ‘The Epistemology of Evidence-Based Policy’ research group at the Zentrum für Interdisziplinäre Forschung (ZiF) at Bielefeld University, all authors acknowledge funding from the ZiF under grant no. RG2023/1. Additional funding to individuals comes from Volkswagen Foundation Norbert Elias Fellowships (T.O.S. and E.E.C.); National Science Foundation grant 2045007 (H.R.); Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Project 254954344/GRK2073 (H.M.); Dutch Research Council and Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science grant 024.003.025 (H.S.), and Proyectos de Investigación Plurianuales, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (PIP-CONICET) grant 11220210100507CO (E.S.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA

    Mike D. Schneider & Hannah Rubin

  2. Department of Zoology, University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria

    Temitope O. Sogbanmu

  3. Environmental Evidence Synthesis and Knowledge Translation (EESKT) Research Group, University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria

    Temitope O. Sogbanmu

  4. Instituto Patagónico para el Estudio de los Ecosistemas Continentales (IPEEC-CONICET), Puerto Madryn, Argentina

    Alejandro Bortolus

  5. Center for Infectious Diseases Research, Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, Lagos, Nigeria

    Emelda E. Chukwu

  6. Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK

    Remco Heesen

  7. School of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences, University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

    Remco Heesen

  8. Centre for One Biosecurity Research Analysis and Synthesis, Lincoln University, Lincoln, New Zealand

    Chad L. Hewitt

  9. Centre for Biosecurity and One Health, Harry Butler Institute at Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

    Chad L. Hewitt & Anne Schwenkenbecher

  10. Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF), Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany

    Ricardo Kaufer

  11. Department of Philosophy, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany

    Hanna Metzen

  12. African Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Veli Mitova

  13. School of Humanities, Arts and Social Science, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

    Anne Schwenkenbecher

  14. Instituto de Biología de Organismos Marinos (IBIOMAR-CONICET), Puerto Madryn, Argentina

    Evangelina Schwindt

  15. Faculty of Philosophy, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands

    Helena Slanickova

  16. School of Law, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Katie Woolaston

  17. Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

    Li-an Yu

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  1. Mike D. Schneider
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Correspondence to Mike D. Schneider.

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Schneider, M.D., Sogbanmu, T.O., Rubin, H. et al. Science–policy research collaborations need philosophers. Nat Hum Behav (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01892-x

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