Collaborative Research: Participatory Technology Assessment and Cultures of Expertise

该奖项支持一项研究项目，该项目旨在研究在联邦机构决策背景下实现专业知识民主化的努力。它调查了参与式技术评估是否以及如何改变了NASA、NOAA和DOE的专家文化。参与式技术评估是不同利益相关者群体（包括公民组织、国家系统和非政府机构）与技术科学家和技术专家组互动的公共参与活动，对机构决策过程和技术专家对非专业公民的看法影响甚微。将在本项目中开展的联邦政府机构案例研究及其参与式技术评估实践有可能为众多类型的技术专家在实践中如何规划和实施此类评估提供信息；它将为改进未来的合作吸取实际经验教训。除了学术出版物和会议报告之外，本研究的结果还将用于编写一本最佳实践手册，以促进专门从事公众参与的边界组织与政府机构之间的有效合作。研究结果将在华盛顿特区举行的亚利桑那州立科学政策成果联盟系列研讨会上公布，该研讨会有着悠久的历史，吸引了当地和联邦机构、非政府组织和对研究实际应用感兴趣的学者。本研究项目将采用深度访谈和文献分析相结合的方法，评估参与式技术评估是否以及如何导致专家对公众投入和知识的看法发生反身性变化，包括专家如何在决策中感知和实施公众参与实践。研究团队可以接触到美国联邦政府的技术专家决策者。因此，该研究将能够解决公众参与和专业知识文献中的基本知识差距。它将提供联邦机构专家对其参与采用、制定和实施参与式技术评估以及将评估结果纳入决策过程的反思的比较和应用说明。它将揭示特定的联邦机构专家和专家组是如何受到评估过程的影响并对其提出质疑的，并将探讨这种评估在多大程度上可以作为技术专家决策者的反射式学习工具。它也可以用来证实公众参与和专业知识文献中现有的理论，这些理论仅仅假设通过公众参与练习可以改善决策过程和技术科学文化变革。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award supports a research project that studies efforts to democratize expertise in the context of federal agency decision-making. It investigates whether and how participatory technology assessments have change expert cultures at NASA, NOAA, and DOE. Very little is known about how participatory technology assessments, which are public engagement exercises where different stakeholder groups (including citizen organizations, state systems, and non-government agencies) interact with technical scientist and technical expert groups, impact agency decision-making processes and the ways that technical experts think about lay citizens. The case studies of federal government agencies and their participatory technology assessment practices that are to be developed in this project have the potential to inform how numerous types of technical experts plan and implement such assessments in practice; it will result in practical lessons learned for improving future collaborations. Beyond academic publications and conference presentations, the results of this study will be used to develop a best practices handbook for effective collaboration between boundary organizations that specialize in public engagement and government agencies. Results will be presented at the Arizona State Consortium for Science Policy Outcomes seminar series in Washington, DC, which has a long history of engaging local and federal agencies, NGOs, and academics interested in the practical application of research.This research project will use a combination of in-depth interviews and document analysis to assess whether and how participatory technology assessments lead to reflexive changes in expert views on public input and knowledge, including how experts perceive and implement public engagement practices in decision making. The research team has access to technical expert decision-makers in the U.S. federal government context. As a result, the study will be able to address fundamental knowledge gaps in the public engagement and expertise literature. It will provide a comparative, applied account of federal agency expert reflections on their participation in the adoption, framing, and implementation of participatory technology assessment and the integration of assessment results into decision-making processes. It will bring to light how particular federal agency experts and expert groups are influenced by and challenge the assessment process, and it will explore the extent to which such assessments serve the role of a reflexive learning device for technical expert decision-makers. It may also serve to substantiate existing theories in the public engagement and expertise literature that merely postulates improvements in decision making processes and techno-scientific cultural change through public engagement exercises.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.