Collaborative Research: Responsible Innovation with Genetically Modified American Chestnut Trees

受众概述这个合作提案的重点是转基因美国板栗树(GMAC)。与基因驱动等其他新兴生物技术不同，GMAC已经接受了多年的现场测试；它即将进入全面环境释放的监管审查程序。两个研究小组将与四个核心利益攸关方群体接触：生物技术专家、土著社区、非政府组织和政策制定者。北卡罗来纳州立大学的研究小组将与生物技术专家进行访谈和实验室人种学研究，小组将举办一次研讨会，其中将包括大学研究人员、非政府组织以及公共和私营部门的相关科学家之间的重要互动和对话。它还将进行叙述性政策框架分析，以揭示非政府组织和其他政治行为者如何利用叙述性来管理GMAC的发展和部署。利益相关者研讨会将为未来高度协作的努力奠定基础，让公众参与到新兴技术中来；它将侧重于公众受众可能采取的有意义的方式，以决定是否以及如何将GMAC发布到共享环境中。合作机构纽约州立大学环境科学和林业学院土著人民和环境中心的研究小组将在Haudenosaunee地区进行语言分析并主办一次研讨会，以了解GMAC可能以何种方式与土著社区的历史和主权相交。这种合作将在大学研究人员和经常被排除在决策过程之外的代表性不足的社区之间创造多种接触。项目人员将为利益相关者撰写研究报告，为跨学科学术会议做演示，并至少撰写八篇手稿发表在同行评议的期刊上。技术总结通过关注四个核心利益相关者群体的共同主题，拟议的研究旨在促进关于专业知识、预期治理、负责任的创新和环境正义的学术研究。对树木生物技术专家的采访探讨了对创新技术及其监管环境的预期，这与最广泛意义上的治理有关。与纽约州立大学研究人员的合作将共同产生面向经常被排除在外的公众的知识，纳入对转基因树木的看法，并洞察负责任的创新、本土专业知识和环境正义之间的关系。叙述性政策框架分析承诺对非政府组织的活动有更多细致入微的理解，而不仅仅是它们对转基因生物的积极和消极立场。利益相关者研讨会让从事社会科学研究的专家们测试他们自己的看法是如何改变的，以及他们在多大程度上重新想象自己在与公众接触转基因树木和其他生物技术方面的角色。

General Audience Summary This collaborative proposal focuses on the Genetically Modified American Chestnut tree (GMAC). Unlike other emerging biotechnologies, such as gene drives, the GMAC has already been subjected to multiple years of field testing; it is on the verge of entering the regulatory review process for full environmental release. Two research teams will engage with four core stakeholder groups: biotechnologists, indigenous communities, non-governmental organizations, and policy makers. The research team at North Carolina State University will engage in interviews and laboratory ethnographies with biotechnologists, and the team will conduct a workshop that will include significant interaction and dialogue among university researchers, non-governmental organizations, and associated scientists in the public and private sectors. It will also conduct a narrative policy framework analysis to reveal the ways in which non-governmental organizations and other political actors use narratives to govern the development and deployment of the GMAC. The stakeholder workshop will lay groundwork for a highly collaborative future effort to engage the public on an emerging technology; it will focus on the ways in which public audiences might be meaningfully engaged to decide if and how the GMAC should be released into shared environments. The research team at the collaborating institution, the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry's Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, will conduct linguistic analysis and host a workshop in Haudenosaunee territory to understand the ways in which the GMAC might intersect with the history and sovereignty of indigenous communities. The collaboration will create multiple engagements between university researchers and underrepresented communities often excluded from decision-making processes. Project personnel will produce research reports for stakeholders, presentations for interdisciplinary academic conferences, and at least eight manuscripts for publication in peer-reviewed journals.Technical Summary By focusing on a common set of themes across four core stakeholder groups, the proposed research aims to advance scholarship on expertise, anticipatory governance, responsible innovation, and environmental justice. Interviews of tree biotechnologists explore the anticipations, which is related to governance in the broadest sense, of innovative technologies and their regulatory environments. The collaboration with the State University of New York researchers will co-produce knowledge addressing a public that is often excluded, to incorporate perceptions of genetically modified trees and provide insight into relationships among responsible innovation, indigenous expertise, and environmental justice. The narrative policy framework analysis promises more nuanced understandings of the activities of non-governmental organizations beyond their positive and negative stances concerning genetically modified organisms. The stakeholder workshop confronts experts with social science research to test how their own perceptions change and to what degree they re-imagine their own roles in engaging with the public about genetically modified trees and other biotechnologies.