Credibility and Use of Scientific and Technical Information in Science Policy Making: An Analysis of the Information Bases of the National Research Council's Committee Reports

决策者和研究人员经常对科学和技术信息在公共政策决策中使用的程度有限表示失望。然而，对正式科学技术信息有限使用的看法是否符合经验现实？如果科技创新不是公共政策的主要信息基础，那么还采用了哪些其他类型的信息？这些类型的信息如何与科技创新竞争以纳入政策制定？该项目的重点是在科学政策审议中利用科技创新，这一领域通常充斥着相关的科技创新，并因在信息使用方面有实践的科技创新用户和科技创新生产者基础而具有优势。如果科学与创新在科学政策中的作用是有限的，那么人们可以预期，它在大多数其他公共政策领域中的作用至少也会受到同样的限制。本研究考察了国家科学院和国家工程院的国家研究委员会（NRC）报告中科技创新和其他信息类型的使用情况。这些报告似乎对检查性传播感染的使用特别有用。首先，美国国家科学院是一个准公共机构，由美国国会负责就科技密集型政策问题提供建议。因此，对委员会编写的报告有内在的政策需求。其次，NRC委员会的工作信息异常丰富。学院的机构威望与NRC委员会成员的典型高水平的突出相结合，确保了获得各种各样的个人对个人和非正式信息资源的水平。该项目的研究方法包括编制60份报告样本，并对其进行深入的文献计量分析，确定正式STI（定义为来自同行评议期刊的研究）与其他类型引用（例如灰色文献、政府文件和专家证词）的比例。该研究考虑了许多可能与科技创新使用相关的因素，包括委员会小组的组成、学科背景以及NRC研究主题的公众知名度和争议性，这些因素都是在媒体报道的内容分析中确定的。最后，该项目考虑了科技创新的使用对报告影响的程度，这取决于对媒体的内容分析，包括主要报纸（例如，随时间推移的专栏报道英寸）、互联网上的页面浏览量、Scopus和Web of Science的引用，特别是实际法律和公共政策文件中对报告的引用。更广泛的影响。预计该项目不仅将提供有关科技创新使用程度的知识，还将提供影响科技创新在科学政策制定中的使用的因素以及科技创新使用与其他信息资源的关系的知识。因此，研究结果有可能改善政策信息和政策决策。研究结果将用于在美国科学促进会的国家会议上举办讲习班。研讨会将汇聚政策制定者和STEM研究人员，讨论各自对决策信息需求的看法。

Policy makers and researchers often voice disappointment with the limited extent to which scientific and technical information is used in public policy decision-making. However, does the perception of the limited use of formal scientific and technical information (STI) accord with empirical reality? If STI is not the predominant information base in public policies, what other types of information are employed and how do these types of information compete with STI for inclusion in policy making? The project focuses on the use of STI in science policy deliberations, an area typically rife with relevant STI and advantaged by a STI user- and a STI producer-base practiced in the use of information. If the role of STI is limited in science policy, one would expect the role to be at least as limited in most other public policy domains. The present study examines the use of STI, and other information types, in National Research Council (NRC) reports of the National Academy of Science and the National Academy of Engineering. These reports seem especially useful for examining STI use. First, the National Academies apparatus is a quasi-public body charged by the U.S. Congress with providing advice about science and technology intensive policy issues. Thus, there is built-in policy demand for the reports produced by committees. Second, the NRC committee work is unusually information rich. The combination of the institutional prestige of the Academies, taken with the typically high level of prominence of NRC committee members, ensures a level of access to a wide variety of person-to-person and informal information resources. The project's research approach entails developing a sample of 60 reports and subjecting them to intensive bibliometric analysis, determining the proportion of formal STI (defined as studies from peer-reviewed journals) to other type citations (e.g. gray literature, government documents, and expert testimony). The study considers a number of factors possibly related to the use of STI, including the composition of committees' panels, disciplinary backgrounds and the public visibility and controversy of the NRC study topics, as determined in content analyses of media coverage. Finally, the project considers the extent to which the use of STI affects the impacts of reports, determined by content analyses of media, including leading newspapers (e.g. column inches of coverage over time), number of page views on the Internet, citations from Scopus and Web of Science, and, especially, citations to the reports in actual laws and public policy documents. Broader impacts. The project is expected to provide knowledge not only of the extent of STI use but the factors that affect its use in science policy making and the relationship of STI use to other information resources. Thus, findings have the potential to improve policy information and policy decisions. Study results will be used to develop a workshop conducted at national meetings of the AAAS. The workshop will bring together policy-makers and STEM researchers to discuss respective views about information needs for policy-making.