Translating science into policy

Chris Elfring

Excerpt

SINCE you got out of bed this morning, you've made a dozen decisions based at least in part on your understanding of science: Should you drink a cup of coffee? Eat a bowl of bran cereal? Should you drive or take public transportation to work? For each situation you weighed the facts and made a decision. Maybe something more than facts influenced your decision—maybe you hate bran cereal and went for a cheese danish instead. Or maybe you fought the urge to eat the danish—sugar and fat are bad for you—and you compromised by eating a bagel. As you can see, we are experienced in the art of translating science into policy, at least at the level of our everyday lives.

But how do you translate science into policy on a bigger scale? How do you take what you know about science, about natural resources, to provide information useful to de-cisionmakers? In other words, “How can we get them to listen?”

Why don't decisionmakers listen to scientists? There are at least three possible reasons: (1) “They” don't understand science. (2) “They” are too influenced by …

Footnotes

Chris Elfing is a senior staff officer for the Water Science and Technology Board National Research Council 2101 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington DC 20418. This article is adapted from a presentation given at the 47th annual meeting of SWCS in Baltimore MD August 10, 1992
Copyright 1992 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society

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