Collaborative Research: Workshop on Science, Technology, and Inequalities, Washington, DC, 2004

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This collaborative proposal between AAAS and Georgia Institute of Technology is to organize a workshop focused on several current attempts to use Science and Technology to reduce important inequalities. Many contemporary observers are expressing concern that inequality is growing in the Knowledge Society, but the situation is more complicated than these assertions. The workshop discussion will be organized around three case studies: health disparities, African agriculture, and drug patents. Each focuses on a science or technology policy or program that is being pursued with the goal of reducing inequalities. Enthusiasts for these options would interact with skeptics about them. The objective of that encounter is to synthesize experience across the specific initiatives and begin to develop the logic that will allow agencies to design and evaluate S&T policies and programs to reduce inequalities effectively. The project addresses a question that is both important and neglected in science policy studies and in science policy practice. Distributional consequences of science and technology policies are seldom taken into account in the general understanding of how science produces benefits for society. Yet those consequences shape everyday lives and societies in fundamental ways. The results of the workshop will be published in an edited volume that could contribute to the effectiveness of S&T policies and programs designed to reduce inequalities.