About Resource
Expert & Citizen Assessment of Science and Technology (ECAST) is a distributed network of organizations that supports peer-to-peer public deliberation and engagement on issues in science and technology policy. Launched in 2010, ECAST brings together a variety of groups, including groups of academic professionals, informal science education and citizen science programs, and non-partisan policy research organizations for deliberative programming. Its founding partners include the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes at Arizona State University; the Museum of Science, Boston; SciStarter.org; Science Cheerleaders; the Loka Institute; and the Science and Technology Innovation Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
The facilitation of deliberative programs over the past decade of ECAST’s operations has led to national- and global-scale public deliberations in the United States on issues including biodiversity, space, climate, and energy. ECAST has developed and refined a method of determining public values and opinions to help inform policy development decision making called Participatory Technology Assessments (pTA). Recognizing the success and potential benefits of expanding this approach in the United States, the Day One Project published a policy proposal calling for capacity-building in pTA for the U.S. Executive Branch and Federal agencies.
How to Use
Participatory Technology Assessment (pTA) consists of three participatory phases:
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- Problem Framing. Designed to construct a more balanced issue framing by first gathering public opinion and then holding a workshop where the public, experts, and stakeholders can combine their perspectives.
- ECAST Deliberation. A day-long deliberation with 80–100 members of the public. These deliberations involve recruiting diverse participants, providing them with informational briefing packets, and holding an interactive deliberation event where participants are grouped with 6–8 other individuals and a trained facilitator.
- Results and Integration. Data is gathered on the public values and rationales surfaced during the deliberation, as well as demographic data and pre- and post-surveys. This data is then analyzed to create an output that is useful to decision makers.
Examples of ECAST pTA projects include a collaboration with World Wide Views and NASA’s Asteroid Initiative Forum.
Author(s)/Organization: Expert and Citizen Assessment of Science and Technology (ECAST)
Tags
Attributes:Aims for Action
Outcomes:Increased Science Agency, Capacity for Civic Engagement, Impactful Scientific Research, Sustainable Solutions for Society
Approaches:Dialogue & Deliberation
Type:Program Examples