Collaborative Research: Responsible Innovation with Genetically Modified American Chestnut Trees

本合作提案的重点是转基因美洲栗树（GMAC）。与基因驱动等其他新兴生物技术不同，GMAC已经经受了多年的实地测试；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相关者群体接触：生物技术专家、土著社区、非政府组织和决策者。北卡罗莱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，该小组将举办一个研讨会，其中包括大学研究人员、非政府组织和公共和私营部门的相关科学家之间的重要互动和对话。它还将进行叙述政策框架分析，以揭示非政府组织和其他政治行动者如何利用叙述来指导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，使公众参与新兴技术；它将重点关注公众可能有意义地参与决定是否以及如何将GMAC发布到共享环境中的方式。合作机构——纽约州立大学环境科学与林业学院土著民族与环境中心的研究小组将进行语言分析，并在豪德诺索尼地区举办研讨会，以了解GMAC可能与土著社区的历史和主权相交的方式。这项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建立多重接触。项目人员将为利益相关者撰写研究报告，在跨学科学术会议上发表演讲，并在同行评审期刊上发表至少8篇论文。通过关注四个核心利益相关者群体的共同主题，拟议的研究旨在推进专业知识、预期治理、负责任创新和环境正义方面的学术研究。三位生物技术专家的访谈探讨了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。与纽约州立大学的研究人员的合作将共同为经常被排除在外的公众提供知识，结合对转基因树木的看法，并为负责任的创新、本土专业知识和环境正义之间的关系提供见解。叙述性政策框架分析有望使人们对非政府组织在转基因生物问题上的积极和消极立场之外的活动有更细致的了解。利益相关者研讨会让专家们面对社会科学研究，以测试他们自己的看法如何变化，以及他们在多大程度上重新想象自己在与公众接触有关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.