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Last call for Science and Innovation in a Time of Transformation—the Canadian Science Policy Conference (November 13 – 15, 2023)

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Unless something really exciting happens, this will be my last post about the upcoming 2023 (and 15th annual) Canadian Science Policy Conference. I will be highlighting a few of the sessions but, first, there’s this from an October 26, 2023 Canadian Science Policy Centre announcement (received via email),

Only Two Weeks Left to Register for CSPC [Canadian Science Policy Conference] 2023!

Only two weeks left to register for CSPC 2023! The deadline to register is Friday, November 10th! With the overarching theme of ‘Science and Innovation in a Time of Transformation’ CSPC 2023 expects more than 1000 participants, 300+ speakers in 50+ panel sessions, and will include a spectacular Gala Dinner featuring its award ceremony which has become a signature annual event to celebrate Canadian science and innovation policy achievements. 

CSPC 2023 will feature more than 300 amazing speakers. To view the list of speakers, click here, and here are some of the international speakers: 

Multiple ticket discounts are also available. CSPC offers a 5% discount on groups of 5-9 registrations and a 10% discount for 10 registrations or more. Please note GROUP REGISTRATION DISCOUNTS are available until Friday, November 10th. Please contact conference@sciencepolicy.ca for more information.

Register now by clicking the button below!
Register Now

View the CSPC 2023 Program and Speakers List!

The biggest and most comprehensive annual Science and Innovation Policy Conference, CSPC 2023, is fast approaching! Explore more than 60 concurrent and plenary panel sessions. Navigate the CSPC 2023 Program: the Interactive Agenda is available here, and the Agenda at a Glance can be viewed here.

There are four sessions that seem particularly interesting to me. First, from the session webpage,

804 – Discussion between Dr. Mona Nemer and Dr. Sethuraman Panchanathan, moderated by Dr. Alejandro Adem

Monday, November 13, 20231:00 PM – 2:00 PM

This year’s CSPC opening panel will bring together two of North America’s most recognized science leaders for a discussion about their experience in the Canadian and U.S research landscape. Panelists will discuss the importance of societally-relevant science, broadening participation in science, the increasing need for open science, and science & technology in green economic development, as well as their vision for the role of science in international relations.

Organized by: Canada Research Coordinating Committee

Speakers

Dr. Alejandro Adem
President of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)

Dr. Mona Nemer
Canada’s Chief Science Advisor, Government of Canada

Dr. Sethuraman Panchanathan
Computer Scientist and Engineer
15th Director of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)

Second, from the session webpage,

901 – The new challenges of information in parliaments

Monday, November 13, 20232:30 PM – 4:00 PM

In a democratic environment, members of parliament work with information gathered from parliamentary staff, media, lobbies and experts. With the aim of maintaining a strong democracy, parliaments around the world have developed mechanisms to facilitate access to high-quality information for elected representatives, with variations according to continent, language and culture. This panel proposes an overview of these mechanisms including a discussion on emerging issues impacting them, such as the integration of artificial intelligence and the risks of digital interference in democratic processes.

Organized by: Fonds de recherche du Quebec

Speakers

…

Interestingly, the Canadian Science Policy Centre recently published a research report titled “Survey of Parliamentarians; Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Use of Science in Policy Making,” you can my comments about it in my October 13, 2023 posting.

Third, from the session webpage,

277 – Science for Social Justice: Advancing the agenda set by the 2022 Cape Town World Science Forum

Tuesday, November 14, 202310:30 AM – 12:00 PM

South Africa had hosted the 10th World Science Forum (WSF), a platform for global science policy dialogue, in Cape Town in December 2022. The WSF is co-organised by a partnership involving global science organisations including UNESCO, the AAAS and the International Science Council, and Hungarian Academy of Science. The theme of the 2022 WSF was “Science for Social Justice.” During a week of intense debate more than 3000 participants from across the world debated the role of science in advancing social justice. This session will review the outcomes of the Forum, including the WSF Declaration on Science for Social Justice.

Organized by: South African Department of Science and Innovation

Speakers

…

The fourth and final session to be mentioned here, from the session webpage,

910 – Canada’s Quantum potential : critical partnerships and public policy to advance Canada’s leadership in Quantum science and technology.

Tuesday, November 14, 202310:30 AM – 12:00 PM

Canada’s early commitment to invest in Quantum research and technology has made our nation one of the global leaders in that field, and the $360 million earmarked over a seven-year period to foster the National Quantum Strategy (NQS) is a testament to Canada’s leadership ambition in the future. This panel discussion will address the ever-evolving field of quantum science and technology and offer a unique opportunity to explore its policy dimensions including the current state of the field, its advancements and potential applications, and the overall impact of quantum innovations across various sectors. It will explore the transformative impact of quantum science and technologies, and the quantum revolution 2.0 on society, from diverse expert perspectives, using examples such as the impact of quantum computing on drug discovery or financial modelling, as well as discussing the ethical considerations and potential for misuse in surveillance or disinformation campaigns. This panel will examine a variety of policy and social implications of Quantum technologies, including the impact of foundational research and training, approaches to support Quantum industries at their development stages, risks, obstacles to commercialization, and opportunities for better inclusion.

Organized by: University of Ottawa

Speakers

Dr. Khabat Heshami
Research Officer at the National Research Council Canada [NRC]

Jeff Kinder
Project Director
Council of Canadian Academies

Professor Ebrahim Karimi
Co-Director the Nexus for Quantum Technologies Research Institute
University of Ottawa

Professor Ghassan Jabbour
Canada Research Chair in Engineered Advanced Materials and Devices
University of Ottawa – Faculty of Engineering

Rafal Janik
Chief Operating Officer
Xanadu

Tina Dekker
Research Fellow of the University of Ottawa Research Chair in Technology and Society

A few comments

I have highlighted speakers from two of the sessions as I’m going to make a few comments. Dr. Mona Nemer who’s part of the opening panel discussion and Canada’s Chief Science Advisor and Dr. Mehrdad Hariri, the founder and current Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for Canadian Science Policy Centre, which organizes the conference, are both from a region that is experiencing war.

I imagine this is a particularly difficult time for many people in Canada whose family and friends are from the various communities in that region. Along with many others, I hope one day there is peace for everyone. For anyone who might want a little insight into the issues, there’s an October 15, 2023 CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) radio programme segement on ‘The Sunday Magazine with Piya Chattopadhyay’,

How to maintain solidarity in Canadian Jewish and Palestinian communities

The events in Israel and Gaza in the last week have sparked high levels of grief, pain and outrage, deepening long-simmering divides in the region and closer to home. For years, Raja Khouri and Jeffrey Wilkinson have embarked on a joint project to bring North American Palestinian and Jewish communities together. They join Piya Chattopadhyay to discuss how the events of the last week are challenging that ongoing mission in Canada… and how to strive for solidarity in a time of grief and trauma.

You can find the almost 22 mins. programme here. Khouri’s and Wilkinson’s book, “The Wall Between: What Jews and Palestinians Don’t Want to Know about Each Other” was published on October 3, 2023 just days before the initial Hamas attacks,

The Wall Between is a book about the wall that exists between Jewish and Palestinian communities in the Diaspora. Distrust, enmity, and hate are common currencies. They manifest at university campuses, schools and school boards, at political events, on social media, and in academic circles. For Jews, Israel must exist; for Palestinians, the historic injustice being committed since 1948 must be reversed. Neither wants to know why the Other cannot budge on these issues. The wall is up.

These responses emanate, primarily, from the two “metanarratives” of Jews and Palestinians: the Holocaust and the Nakba. Virtually every response to the struggle, from a member of either community, can be traced back to issues of identity, trauma, and victimhood as they relate to their respective metanarrative. This book examines the role that propaganda and disinformation play in cementing trauma-induced fears for the purpose of making the task of humanizing and acknowledging the Other not just difficult, but almost inconceivable. The authors utilize recent cognitive research on the psychological and social barriers that keep Jews and Palestinians in their camps, walled off from each other. They present a clear way through, one that is justice-centered, rather than trauma-and propaganda-driven.

The authors have lived these principles and traveled this journey, away from their tribal traumas, through embracing the principles of justice. They insist that commitment to the Other means grappling with seemingly incompatible narratives until shared values are decided and acted upon. This book is a call to justice that challenges the status quo of Zionism while at the same time dealing directly with the complex histories that have created the situation today. The book is both realistic and hopeful—a guide for anyone who is open to new possibilities within the Israel-Palestine discourse in the West.

From the publisher’s author descriptions, “Jeffrey J. Wilkinson, PhD, is an American Jew who lives in Canada.” From his Wikipedia entry, “Raja G. Khouri is a Lebanese born Arab-Canadian..”

Also, thank you to Dr. Nemer and Dr. Hariri for the science policy work they’ve done here in Canada and their efforts to expand our discussions.

On a much lighter note, the ‘quantum session’ panel is dominated by academics from the University of Ottawa, a policy wonk from Ottawa, and a representative from a company based in Toronto (approximately 450 km from Ottawa by road). Couldn’t the panel organizers have made some effort to widen geographical representation? This seems particularly odd since the policy wonk (Jeff Kinder) is currently working with the Canadian Council of Academies’ Expert Panel on the Responsible Adoption of Quantum Technologies, which does have wider geographical representation.

This CSPC 2023 panel also seems to be another example of what appears to be a kind of rivalry between D-Wave Systems (based in the Vancouver area) and Xanadu Quantum Technologies (Toronto-based) or perhaps another east-west Canada rivalry. See my May 4, 2021 posting (scroll down to the ‘National Quantum Strategy’ subhead) for an overview of sorts of the seeming rivalry; there’s my July 26, 2022 posting for speculation about Canada’s quantum scene and what appears to be an east/west divide; and for a very brief comment in my April 17, 2023 posting (scroll down to the ‘The quantum crew’ subhead.)

As for the conference itself, there’s been a significant increase in conference registration fees this year (see my July 28, 203 posting) and, for the insatiable, there’s my March 29, 2023 posting featuring the call for submissions and topic streams.

Canadian Science Policy Centre does some funky research, hosts October 2023 events, and more

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I’m going to start with the ‘more’.

Deadline extended

From an October 12, 2023 Canadian Science Policy Centre (CSPC) announcement received via email,

Science Meets Parliament 2024
Application Deadline is Nov 9th!

You still have some time, the deadline to submit your applications for Science Meets Parliament 2024, is Thursday, Nov 9th [2023]! To apply, click here..

Science Meets Parliament (SMP) is a program that works to strengthen the connections between the science and policy communities. This program is open to Tier II Canada Research Chairs, Indigenous Principal Investigators, and Banting Postdoctoral Fellows.

Two events: October 13, 2023 and October 24, 2023

From an October 12, 2023 Canadian Science Policy Centre (CSPC) announcement,

Upcoming Virtual Panel [Canada-Brazil Cooperation and Collaboration in STI [Science, Technology, and Innovation]]

This virtual panel aims to discuss the ongoing Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) cooperation between Brazil and Canada, along with the potential for furthering this relationship. The focus will encompass strategic areas of contact, ongoing projects, and scholarship opportunities. It is pertinent to reflect on the science diplomacy efforts of each country and their reciprocal influence. Additionally, the panel aims to explore how Canada engages with developing countries in terms of STI.

Please note the panel date has been changed to October 13th at 12pm EST. Click the button below to register for the upcoming virtual panel!
Register Here

An event to mark a CSPC research report,

Report Launch on The Hill!
CSPC Survey of Parlimentarians!

CSPC has organized a panel discussion on Oct 24th [2023] at 8 AM [EST] on Parliament Hill to launch the results of the project: “Survey of Parliamentarians on the Impact of the Pandemic on the Use of Science in Policy Making”.

This project was conducted by the CSPC’s Evaluation and Reports Committee, which began the dissemination of the survey to parliamentarians in 2021. The objective was to gather information on the impact of the pandemic on the use of science in policy-making. Survey responses were analyzed and a full report is going to be presented and publicized.

More information about the survey and the Final Report on the Survey of Parliamentarians can be found HERE.

To attend this in-person event, please click the button below.
Register Here


Funky or not? Final Report on the Survey of Parliamentarians

[downloaded from https://sciencepolicy.ca/survey-of-parliamentarians/]

Wouldn’t it have been surprising if the survey results had shown that parliamentarians weren’t interested in getting science information when developing science policies? Especially surprising given that the survey was developed, conducted, and written up by the Canadian Science Policy Centre.

While there is a lot of interesting material, I really wish the authors had addressed the self-serving nature of this survey in their report. To their credit they do acknowledge some of the shortcomings, from the report (PDF), here’s the conclusion, Note: All emphases are mine,

There was near unanimous agreement by parliamentarians that there is a need for scientific knowledge in an accessible and policy-ready format. Building upon that, and taking into account the difficulties that parliamentarians identified in acquiring scientific knowledge to support policy- making, there were two main facilitators suggested by participants that may improve timely and understandable scientific knowledge in parliamentarian work. Firstly, the provision of scientific knowledge in a policy-ready format through a non-partisan science advice mechanism such as a non-partisan science advisor for the House of Commons and Senate. Secondly, research
summaries in an accessible format and/or briefing of hot scientific topics provided by experts. As parliamentarians revealed in this survey, there is a clear desire to use scientific knowledge more frequently as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the scientific community has an opportunity to support parliamentarians in this regard through mechanisms such as those indicated here.

Notwithstanding, the findings above come with some limitations within this study. First, the committee acknowledges that due to the small sample size of survey participants – particularly for MPs – the results presented in this report may not be representative of the parliamentarians of the 43rd Canadian Parliament. The committee also acknowledges that this limitation is further compounded by incomplete demographic representation. Although the committee made great efforts to achieve a survey demographic across gender, party affiliation, geographical location, and language that was representative of the 43rd Canadian Parliament, there were certain demographics that were ultimately under-represented. For these reasons, trends highlighted in this report and comparisons between MPs and senators should be interpreted with these limitations in mind. Finally, the committee acknowledged the possibility that the data presented in this report may be biased towards more positive perceptions of scientific knowledge, since this survey was more likely to have been completed by parliamentarians who have an interest in science. Even with these limitations, this study provides a critical step forward in understanding parliamentarians’ needs regarding acquisition of scientific knowledge in their work and proposing possible mechanisms to support these needs.

In conclusion, the current report reveals that parliamentarians’ inclination to use science in policy-making has increased in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, parliamentarians are more aware than ever of the necessity for accurate and accessible scientific knowledge in their work. There are clear challenges facing the use of scientific knowledge in policy-making, namely misinformation and disinformation, but participants highlighted different key proposed mechanisms that can better integrate science and research into the framework of public policy. [p. 34]

Self-selection (“more likely to have been completed by parliamentarians who have an interest in science”) is always a problem. As for geographical representation, no one from BC, Saskatchewan, the Yukon, Nunavut, or the Northwest Territories responded.

Intriguingly, there were 18 Senators and 8 MP (members of Parliament) for a total of 26 respondents (see pp. 15-16 in the report [PDF] for more about the demographics).

As the authors note, it’s a small number of respondents. which seems even smaller when you realize there are supposed to be 338 MPs (House of Commons of Canada Wikipedia entry) and 105 Senators (List of current senators of Canada Wikipedia entry).

I wish they had asked how long someone had served in Parliament. (Yes, a bit tricky when an MP is concerned but perhaps asking for a combined total would solve the problem.)

While I was concerned about the focus on COVID-19 and the generic sounding references to ‘scientific knowledge’, my concerns were somewhat appeased with this, from the report (PDF),

Need for different types of scientific knowledge

The committee found that across all participants, there was an increased need for all listed types of scientific knowledge by the majority of participants. One parliamentarian elaborated on this, highlighting that several Bills have touched on these areas over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic and that in their research work, parliamentarians have had to refer to these areas of scientific knowledge regularly.

Unsurprisingly, the type of scientific knowledge reported to have the largest increase in need was health sciences (85%). Notably, 4% or less of participants indicated a lesser need for all types of scientific knowledge, with health science, social science and humanities, and natural sciences and engineering seeing no decline in need by participants. Both MP and senator participants reported a greater need for research and evidence in health sciences (e.g., public health, vaccine research , cancer treatment etc.), social sciences and humanities (e.g., psychology, sociology, law, ethics), and environmental sciences (e.g., climate, environment, earth studies) as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Particularly, one parliamentarian reflected that there is an increased need among policy- makers to be objective and listen to scientists, as well as scientific data and evidence in areas such as public health and climate change. However, the relative increase in need for each subject between groups was different. For instance, senator participants reported the largest increase in need for health sciences (89%), followed by environmental science (78%) and social sciences and humanities (73%); whereas MP participants reported the largest increase in need for social sciences and humanities (88%), followed by health sciences (75%) and environmental science (63%).

…

Economics, Indigenous Knowledge, and natural sciences and engineering (e.g., biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, engineering) had smaller increases in need for both MPs and senators. For both groups, natural sciences and engineering saw 50% of participants indicate an increase in need. In the case of economics and Indigenous Knowledge, senators noted a larger increase in need for these fields compared to MPs. In particular, in the case of Indigenous Knowledge only 37% of MPs
reported an increased need for this type of scientific knowledge compared to 61% of senators.

Finally, one parliamentarian noted that climate change and Indigenous issues have gained a greater prominence since the pandemic, but not necessarily as a result of it. Therefore, in addition to putting these responses in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, these responses should also be considered in the context of other global and Canadian issues that arose over the course of this survey (Question 4, Annex A [Cannot find any annexes]). [pp. 21-22]

Interesting to read (although I seem to have stumbled onto the report early as it’s no longer available as of October 13, 2023 at 10:10 am PT) from the “Survey of Parliamentarians: Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the use of science in policymaking” CSPC webpage.

As for funky, I think you need to be really clear that you’re aware your report can readily be seen as self-serving and note what steps you’ve taken to address the issue.