Kent sociologist, Professor Joy Y. Zhang, has been awarded a £1.88 million grant from the Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA) to lead a pioneering project which aims to future-proof UK policy on synthetic plants, foster a sustainable innovation ecosystem, and promote meaningful public and stakeholder engagement in the life sciences.
New technological developments in synthetic biology are enabling scientists to make plants more productive, resilient and sustainable. This rapidly advancing technology could help society overcome major health and environmental challenges, but if innovation in this field is to reach its full potential, it needs to be aligned to societal values.
Futuring Biological Commons: Promoting Response-ability among Stakeholders of Synthetic Plants, is a response to this need. The project, led by Professor Zhang, founding director of the Centre for Global Science and Epistemic Justice (GSEJ) in the School of Social Sciences, alongside Mark Smales, Professor of Biotechnology in the School of Natural Sciences, will promote meaningful and actionable public discussion on new technological development in plant synthetic genomics, aiming to foster responsible innovation and support a healthy research community.
To achieve this, the team will carry out several social scientific activities that include building a cross-sector network for scientists, policymakers, industry, farmers, and the public; creating a training course for early-career plant scientists; publishing a new ethical framework; and producing sets of resources for the public. Their approach will draw on GSEJ’s established work on ‘commoning’, a social framework which empowers stakeholders, as co-owners of knowledge and shared futures, to respond to new opportunities and challenges with care, foresight, and collective responsibility.
The team’s efforts will deliver a practical, forward-looking set of ethics and resources for novel technologies that considers care for new biological forms and the UK’s wider biodiversity, ultimately building a community focused on responsible innovation.
Professor Zhang said: ’This project closely aligns with GSEJ’s broader research in engineering biology, forming a key part of the Centre’s initiative to promote O.D.E.SS.I – a new approach to science-society dialogue that champions Open, Deliberative, Enabling, Sensible & Sensitive, and Innovative modes of engagement- which helps mobilise collective action around scientific potential. The project also advances an experience-based, future-oriented plant ethics – one that embraces care for engineered lifeforms and symbiodiversity – supporting the UK’s global leadership in socially responsible and ethically sound life science innovation.’
Professor Smales commented: ‘The potential for engineering biology technologies is enormous, however this will only be realised if all stakeholders are collectively given the required information and opportunity to feed into its responsible application. This award provides an important platform for precisely that.’
Professor Lynn Frewer, co-investigator from Newcastle University, noted:
‘This project marks a vital step toward developing a resilient, future-oriented approach to introducing scientifically enhanced plants in the UK—ensuring that both policy and practice are aligned with the needs and values of all stakeholders.’
Julian Little, a consultant on the project, said: ‘How people think and feel about a new technology will have a significant impact on its future success and uptake in the market place. This project is exactly what is required to get an accurate barometer of stakeholder thinking in place’.