Tyler, C; Akerlof, K; (2019) Three secrets of survival in science advice. [Editorial comment]. Nature , 566 (7743) pp. 175-177. 10.1038/d41586-019-00518-x.

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Abstract

The offices that give science advice to politicians are among the most important public bodies you’ve never heard of. Some nations — notably the United States and Denmark — have closed or stopped funding them. Elsewhere, these bodies are thriving: in the United Kingdom and France, for example. Differences between the healthy and the defunct hold lessons for countries that hope to improve the use of science in law-making and political debate. Spain’s national parliament, for instance, plans to open a science and technology advisory unit this summer. In the United States, hopes have been raised this past year of the return of something like the much-missed Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), shuttered in the mid-1990s. This spring, Congress is likely to consider funding for science and technology advice in its budget appropriations for the legislative branch. Here we offer a three-step survival guide for legislative science and technology advisory bodies (LSTABs). Our recommendations are based on the key functions and factors that seem to have led to the long-term success or failure of such bodies.

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