Dream Fellowship: The dynamic art of narrative for infrastructure policy

我们生活在一个互联的世界里。例如，考虑一种运输系统的模式，而不考虑能源、总体排放、经济考虑因素，甚至与可能使用它的人分开讨论，是不够的。这意味着，我们的决策者面临着非同寻常的挑战，要就关键基础设施组件的设计达成一致，即使这些组件本身具有最高的科学水平。此外，公众对决策的透明度要求越来越高。为了满足这一需求，工程师和科学家必须制定他们的想法，以便政治家、商界领袖和普通公众能够理解任何问题的动机和解决方案。因此，需要从系统的角度考虑两个相互关联的领域：决策科学和决策过程。政策制定离不开“人”。如果没有对人们，包括政策制定者本身的影响进行适当的评估，来自模型的预测往往不会被采纳，尽管这些预测表面上看是相当明智的。在许多情况下，是否采取某一特定战略将取决于最后的讨论，这些讨论可能归结为简单的叙述性描述。提供“正确”的叙述，其他的就会到位。这项建议的总体目标是创造性地刺激语言、艺术和社会行为的使用，以推动在政策制定中使用科学。

We live in a connected world. For instance, it is not sufficient to consider a model for our transport systems separated from discussions on energy, overall emissions, economic considerations and indeed from the people that might use it. This means that our decision-makers have an extraordinary challenge to agree on designs for components of critical infrastructure, even if they themselves are of the highest scientific calibre. Additionally, the general public demand more and more transparency of decisions. To meet this demand, engineers and scientists have to frame their ideas so that politicians, business-leaders and the general public can understand the motives and solutions to any problem. There are thus two interlinked areas to consider from a systems point of view: the science of policy-making and the process of policy-making. Policy-making cannot be separated from 'people'. Without a proper assessment of the effect on people, including the policy-maker themselves, predictions from models will often fail to be taken up despite being apparently quite sensible. In many cases whether a particular strategy is taken up or not will depend upon final discussions that may come down to a simple narrative description. Provide the 'right' narrative and the rest will fall into place. The overall aim of this proposal is to creatively stimulate the use of language, art, and social behaviour to engineer the use of science in policy-making.