Governing Scientific Accountability in China

This week, Chinese partners, Prof. Lu Gao and Dr. Miao Liao brought the Educational Module Resource (EMR) to science postgraduates at Tsinghua University. The decision to incorporate EMR into the course, Innovation and the Development of Science &Technology, as explained by the module convenor Prof. Zhengfeng Li, was to give students ‘a more comprehensives understanding of innovation’. Students’ feedback confirmed that content of the EMR helped them to be more sensitive about how to approach and communicate ‘unknown unknowns’ in emerging science.

A key deliverable of this ESRC project, the pilot 7 lectures of the EMR are arguably the first attempt to develop an educational resource on public engagement training that speaks to Chinese particularities. It aims to fill the gap of public engagement training in Chinese science curriculum.

Earlier this month, sections of the EMR have also been integrated into Yantai University compulsory module, Dialectics of Nature, which is taken by more than 500 postgraduate students across science and engineering majors. Owing to Prof Gao’s and Dr Liao’s effective outreach and strong commitment, other leading Chinese institutions, such as the Beijing Institute of Technology, the Beijing University of Chemical Technology, and a number of research institutions of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have agreed to adopted sections of the EMR into their existing autumn modules.

This pilot run of the EMR is expected to generate valuable insights on institutionalising public engagement education in China. Prof. Goa and Dr. Liao will share their findings next February at this project’s final conference, Governing Trust in the Biosciences: Institutional and Cultural Change at the British Academy in London.

On Friday, September 8, BSA held a workshop on Risk and the Media, Research Officer, Ausma Bernotaite presented her work on risk frames of Golden Rice, a genetically modified food product, representation in the Philippine and Bangladeshi media.

Bernotaite drew on her work of contested media representations of GMO risk in Bangladeshi and Philippine media to argue that through different focus of GM food and public health perceptions and voicing arguments of varying groups of stakeholders, the two countries were able to construct radically different public discourses in the mainstream newspaper media. With a particular focus on a GM food product called Golden Rice, Bernotaite noted that the different forms in which these contentions were portrayed are in line with the quick research, field trial and document submission for further approval.

BSA’s Risk and Society Study Group has been an important research cluster at the University of Kent. This year’s event focused on risk in the media, and upcoming events will further explore the role of risk plays in social sciences.

We welcome Dr. Miao Liao from Chinese Academy of Science and Technology for Development (CASTED), Ministry of Science and Technology, to join our research team on Governing Scientific Accountability in China. Dr. Liao is to work with Dr Joy Zhang to develop an Educational Module Resource (EMR) on the public engagement of science for key Chinese institutions.

The need to establish an EMR with locally-adapted teaching material to support scientific practitioners and educators learning about research-related practices, was identified in our Wuhan workshop this March. A pilot multi-media EMR (equivalent to 10 teaching hours) is expected to be launched in September. It aims to provide key Chinese institutions that participated in the Wuhan workshop with hands-on guidance on public engagement of science.

*Featured image: Dr Liao (second from left) at the ‘Scientific Risk and Public Engagement’ Wuhan workshop, March 2017.