Parker et al. (2014) identifies dimensions a public policy on science and technology to enable development. Complex issues in the policy identify emerging issues to prepare and make plans. The scanning exercise uses modified Delphi technique to necessitate public engagement as the policies are developed. Some of the interest group in the policy includes academics, private sector, policy advisers, practitioners, and policy makers. The stakeholders in the policy prioritize issues in the areas of government, healthcare, national security, infrastructure, population, public safety, and technology. Parker et al. (2014) argue that an effective public policy on development will not only require the public to understand the proposals but will also require public active support the design and the implementation of the proposals. Difficulties experienced in science and technology call for extensive dialogue from the public domain. A dialogue will promote a better understanding of science and technology as a central purpose to the development. The fundamental objective of public engagement is to enhance the contribution of all the stakeholders such as the policy makers and scientists. Engaging with all the stakeholders will fulfill a normative rationale to allow the public to comment on the issues that affect them. The instrumental rationale will facilitate learning on the part of the public leading to an improvement on the quality of policy decisions. In the historical setting Parker et al. (2015) observes that the policy makers ignore the contribution of the public in the social and ethical dimensions of formulations. The policies that lacked engagement resulted in suspicion and distrust among the public. The public policy aims to identify the future issues that involve science and technology that potentially require dialogue to improve the policy development.
The Delphi technique is a process that date in the 1950s so as to forecast interactive expert discussion. The professionals provided confidential assessment to the problem after having summary statistics through an anonymous discussion. The outlines in the score must change their vote or have to justify why the view is correct. Some of the experiments illustrate the effectiveness of the technique than the use of individual professionals. Packer et al. (2014) develops a reduced form of Delphi technique with the attribute of focus groups that deal in the conservation science, poverty reduction, agriculture, and science policy. The approach enables a group of specialists that thoroughly understand the subject area under investigation to confront the emerging issues in as a bid to refine some of the controversial issues.
According to Parker et al. (2014) 36 percent of the stakeholders come from the government departments and the wide public sector, 23 percent come from public policy consultancies, industry and professional science journalism, and 41 percent from the research academia in the science community. The stakeholders raise different issues that range from the middle to the senior level of management since they rely on their own specialized knowledge and wide S&T developments. The additive manufacturing technique offers low production volume. The expectation of technology is to enable consumers to design and customize personalized items in the industry. Consequently, technology will provide an enhanced consumer choice by providing low demand products to the low cost consumers in comparison to standard manufacturing.
Addictive manufacturing can offer sustainable benefits to the consumers by reducing energy applicable in distribution chains to limit waste and overproduction in the warehouse.
Government will correct market failures with respect to encouraging innovation to benefit the society and consumers. The government has to work with the industry and the academia to stimulate support and maintain innovation in the delivery of private goods. Some of the science and technology policy challenges include the development of capabilities in the interdisciplinary system that includes new methods and analytical tools. Another challenge entails devising a mechanism to facilitate integrated grid management to utilize SMART technologies.
References
Parker, M., Acland, A., Armstrong, H. J., Bellingham, J. R., Bland, J., Bodmer, H. C., & Groen, A. J. (2014). Identifying the Science and Technology Dimensions of Emerging Public Policy Issues through Horizon Scanning. Plos ONE, 9(5), 1-17. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0096480
DeLeon, P. (1980). Technology and Public Policy: Whither Side of Janus?. Policy Sciences, 11(3), 235-240.
