New forms of co-working spaces and community labs, such as Hackerspaces and Fablabs, but also open science and citizen science initiatives, by involving new actors often described as makers, tinkerers, and hackers enable innovation and research outside the walls of academia and industry. These alternative and global innovation networks are test beds for studying new forms of public engagement and participation in emergent scientific fields, such as  nanotechnology. The article shows how these grassroots and Do-It-Yourself (DIY) or Do-It-With- Others (DIWO) research subcultures connect politics with design, community building with prototype testing, and how they establish an experimental approach for policy deliberation. We will consider a case study of a temporary, ad hoc and mobile NanoŠmano Lab in Ljubljana, Slovenia, which specializes in nanoscale materials and designs, to demonstrate the potential of prototypes and collective tinkering to become models for public involvement in emergent science and technology fields. This Hackerspace model of governance offers an alternative to the usual route of disruptive innovation, which starts in the R&D laboratory where it waits to be scrutinized by some government or regulatory body and be utilized by a start-up or mega corporation, and only then be safely taken up by the public. Hackerspaces operate through “disruptive prototypes” that create decentralized and nonlinear value chains and interactions between research, design and policy. Adoption of technology goes hand in hand with collective tinkering, and deliberation and assessment are happening simultaneously while prototyping. In this sense, disruptive prototypes can be said to support experimental governance. This policy closely follows some recent calls for “greater reflexiveness in the R&D process” via anticipatory policy and real-time assessment approaches, rather than more common, timeworn precautionary principles.

Science museums perform representations of science and that of its publics. They have been called to intervene in nanotechnology within global public policy programs expected to develop the field. This paper discusses the case of European science museums. It starts by examining the case of a European project that involved science museums working on nanotechnology. This example illustrates a "democratic imperative" that European science museums face, and which implies a transformation of their public role. It offers a path for the analysis of the current evolution of European science communication perspective – from "public understanding of science" to "scientific understanding of the public" – and of the political construction this evolution enacts.

Rapid and significant developments in the science of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) have provoked serious social and ethical concerns as well as positive influences worldwide. This study created a social agenda containing 21 important issues regarding the relationship between ASDs and society and the development of the science of ASDs. The agenda was constructed with the input of a variety of Japanese people who were provided with scientific ASD information and engaged in discussions regarding ASDs. First, opinions were sought via a questionnaire from the attendees of six science café sessions. Then, additional important issues were put forward by attendees of a larger dialogue session regarding the relationship between ASDs and society, again via a questionnaire. The agenda covered a wide range of issues, including information regarding ASDs, people’s understanding of ASDs, social support, education, the difference between ASD characteristics and individuality, ASD research, diagnosis, and social attitudes.

Engaging the public on emerging science technologies has often presented challenges. People may hold notions that science is too complicated for them to understand and the venues at which science is discussed are formal and perceived as  inaccessible. One approach to address these challenges is through the Science Café, or Café Scientifique. We conducted five Science Cafés across Canada  to gauge public awareness of synthetic biology technology, its potential applications, and to evaluate the effectiveness of the Science Café platform as a  knowledge-translation tool. Café participants were excited about the potential benefits of synthetic biology technology, but also concerned about the potential  risks. And while participants trusted scientists to carry out their research, there was limited confidence that regulators would ensure public safety. Science  Cafés as a forum for science to meet society were viewed positively for the relaxed atmosphere, small crowd size and informality of the venue. We conclude  that Science Cafés are an effective upstream engagement platform for discussing emerging science technologies.

This paper investigated the potential of the Public Internet Terminal (PIT) system to promote basic health education for two rural communities in the North West Province of South Africa. A case study approach was used. Participants were selected from a population group of teachers, nurses, business people and  students in the two communities. Observation, group interviews and questionnaire were used to gather evidence from the participants regarding their  operational difficulties, social/economic difficulties and perceived usefulness of using the PIT system for basic health education. The findings revealed that a high number of participants could not operate the PIT system to search for relevant health information. Participants cited reasons of information overload and slow response of the PIT system. Further findings revealed that many participants lack awareness of the PIT services in these post offices. Participants  indicated that the PIT system lacks local content specific information such as healthcare information on vaccination, personal hygiene, nutrition and pharmacies around their vicinities. The results from this study led to the recommendations which emphasized the incorporation of basic e-health education portal into the existing services on the PIT system and proposed a new user interface for the PIT.

Despite an initial tendency to disregard Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) contributions, NGOs have now entered the fishery world, where debates should be carried out on the basis of different interpretations of sound scientific data. Such an approach is expected to be obvious, but this does not prove to be always true. NGOs and the research body that produced the scientific data are confused by other stakeholders and understanding scientific publications is regarded as not necessary. Further, there is a gap between the progress of scientific knowledge and the scientific approach adopted in policy resolutions. This opens new opportunities to carry out focused scientific communication.

This case study describes the development of a climate change information system for New York State, one of the physically largest states in the United States. Agriculture (including dairy production and vineyards) and water-related tourism are large parts of the state economy, and both are expected to be affected dramatically by climate change. The highly politicized nature of the climate change debate in America makes the delivery of science-based information even more urgent and challenging. The United States does not have top-down science communication policies, as many countries do; this case will describe how diverse local and state agencies, corporations, NGOs, and other actors collaborated with university researchers to create a suite of products and online tools with stable, science-based information carefully crafted and targeted to avoid politicization and facilitate education and planning for community, agricultural and business planners and state policy makers who are making decisions now with 20 to 50 year time frames.

Around the world there are widespread efforts to ensure that policy decisions are based upon a sound evidence base, and in particular to facilitate closer integration between the research and policy communities. This commentary provides an overview of the current situation in different parts of the world relating to the opportunities that exist for policy makers to assimilate scientific findings, as well as the existing barriers perceived by both the policy and research communities. Mutual trust and respect between the relevant parties emerge as crucial factors in successful collaboration. Skilled mediators are also considered essential to ensuring effective communication; this may be via third parties such as NGOs, or news services and online portals to convey, ‘translate’ and place in a policy context the scientific findings. Mechanisms for improving researchers’ communication skills as well as increasing their awareness of the need to communicate proactively with the policy community are also considered in order to inform future practice in this area.

Improving communications between scientists and policy makers have being received more and more attention in China. Based on negotiation-boundary work theory (Jasanoff, 1990), this paper presents an analysis of the interface between scientists and policy makers by drawing on the Strategic High-tech Research and Development Program of China (863 Program). The analysis indicates, first, that it is very important of science advice in China, the negotiation and the consensus between scientists and policy makers is vital for policy making; second, that it is dangerous to rely on Technocracy in China, the policy makers give up the discretion while influence experts’ decisions by controlling the consist of scientist advisory committee, which directly result in politicalizing academic research. For scientists and policy makers in China, they should redefine their respective authority boundary, and make the interaction process open and transparent.

The current work aims to present and discuss some results of our studies on the communication between those responsible for setting up public, environmental policies and the Brazilian scientific community. These researches focus on the use of knowledge, mostly scientific knowledge, related to two environmental issues: the conservation of biodiversity and climate change. We have observed that there is a difficult dialogue between the various parties involved in the environmental governance. In addition, most strategies are not institutionalised and are implemented in an attempt to facilitate communication between them.