Mid-term review

Small Talk's mid-term review is available here:

Small Talk mid-term review, November 2005 (PDF).

As part of the review process, we would like to hear your comments on the report and any other aspects of Small Talk, preferably before 31 January 2006. After this dead-line we will report back. See the Mid-term Consultation page for more details.

A summary of the report follows below.

Executive Summary

Small Talk’s primary objectives are to provide coherence for a range of activities around the UK focused on discussing nanotechnologies with publics and scientists, to learn and share lessons from these activities and to assess the extent to which current UK science communication activities provide an appropriate arena for ‘upstream’ dialogue that can inform government policy. (An ‘upstream’ issue is one that has yet to have a major impact on the public, the economy, or anything else.)

Nanotechnologies form the focus because, in addition to being interesting and relevant in their own right, they provide an opportunity for science communication practitioners to apply the lessons learned from the handling of the GM debate to an upstream issue. Small Talk helps to develop and evaluate events that both promote dialogue between stake-holders and facilitate the capture of opinions in a form that is useful to policy makers.

Project partners

Small Talk is a collaboration between The British Association for the Advancement of Science, the Royal Institution, ECSITE-UK and the Cheltenham Science Festival, managed by Think-Lab. Funding has been provided for Small Talk through the COPUS grant scheme and will run from September 2004 – February 2006.

Adjacent initiatives

Several other projects address nanotechnologies as an upstream engagement issue also. The recently formed Nanotechnologies Engagement Group aims to provide coherence to the diverse activity. Adjacent projects underway complement the Small Talk initiative, which remains distinct. The common goal is to forge ways to engage stake-holders and diverse publics in meaningful dialogue about aspirations and fears for nanotechnologies and the physical realities behind those aspirations and fears.

Like Small Talk, these adjacent projects are motivated by the need for coherent policy for technological change and the democratisation of the process to develop these policies. Small Talk’s particular focus is on the role of existing science communication networks and practices whilst other initiatives have generally been working outside these networks. The major difference between Small Talk and other nanotechnology dialogue projects is that Small Talk is practitioner driven. This is also the main reason that Small Talk has a unique contribution to make.

Progress to date

There have been six Small Talk events with another planned for November 2005. Experience from each has informed subsequent events and has been codified into a detailed list of ‘lessons learnt to date’ (Appendix C). The majority of events to date have followed fairly ‘traditional’ formats (focus groups, public discussion meetings). To record opinions in these early events, participants filled in blank speech bubbles on postcards featuring illustrated characters (Appendix B). Audiences responded well to the postcards providing Small Talk with a lot of data. Interestingly, the responses revealed similar aspirations and concerns from groups regardless of their age, background or occupation.

Amongst the opinions expressed was concern about risks as yet unknown and also an expectation of unanticipated benefits – the public appears to expect the unexpected! When asked about the moral implications, several respondents expressed concern about the impact of nanotechnology on developing countries. Participants were generally keen for the UK to be a leader in the field and for research to be well funded. They also believed that decisions on nanotechnology should involve everyone.

Next steps

The homogeneity in responses perhaps should have been expected for an issue whose impact is still hard to imagine. The postcards effectively capture the general perception of the issues around nanotechnologies amongst various publics. However, as this perception is currently so vague, the postcards and ‘traditional’ format of some events do not offer much scope for exploring the deeper attitudes and beliefs that underlie such opinions. Therefore, new methods for exploring and gathering public opinions are recommended in this review.

The recommendations build on the unique features and advantages of the Small Talk project: it is practitioner driven and located in the centre of the science communication community.

Summary of Recommendations

Small Talk should consult policy makers currently in the field to determine their interests and concerns. These interests should inform Small Talk activities. To maximise the impact on policy, appropriate channels for the dissemination of the project outputs should be identified.
Barriers to delivering participative dialogue activities should be explored with science communicators.
Small Talk should be proactive in developing more creative event formats, and funding should only be used for events that trial or develop new formats.
A ‘menu’ of new formats should be developed and presented on the website, to encourage organisations to deliver activities other than Q&A sessions or debates.
New and diverse target audiences should be considered for future events.
Future events should focus on specific aspects of nanotechnologies, for example regulation, impact on developing countries or use in medicine.
Scenarios should be developed to help frame the debates, and allow participants to discuss upstream science that may have few tangible applications.
New instruments to collect audience opinions should be developed to explore the most effective means of capturing their aspirations and concerns.