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

美国科学促进会和格鲁吉亚技术研究所之间的这一合作建议是组织一个讲习班，重点是目前利用科学和技术减少重要不平等的几种尝试。许多当代观察家对知识社会中的不平等现象日益严重表示担忧，但情况比这些断言更为复杂。研讨会将围绕三个案例研究展开讨论：健康差距、非洲农业和药物专利。每个项目都侧重于以减少不平等为目标的科学或技术政策或计划。这些选项的热心者会与怀疑者互动。这次会议的目的是综合各种具体倡议的经验，并开始形成逻辑，使各机构能够设计和评估有效减少不平等现象的科技政策和方案。 该项目解决了一个在科学政策研究和科学政策实践中既重要又被忽视的问题。在对科学如何为社会带来利益的一般理解中，很少考虑到科学和技术政策的分配后果。然而，这些后果从根本上影响着日常生活和社会。研讨会的成果将编辑成册出版，有助于提高旨在减少不平等现象的科技政策和方案的效力。

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.