Toward Achieving Broad Public Engagement with Science, Technology, and Innovation Policies: Trials in JAPAN Vision 2020

Abstract

Science communication is becoming a larger field, including not only the approach known as public understanding of science (PUS), but also public engagement with science and technology (PEST). In this paper, we discuss what “broadly” and “incorporating public opinions in policy making” means and argue that it is important to investigate participants’ segments using the third generation of segmentation method to ensure the broadness of the project. When incorporating public opinions into the STI policy-making process, dealing with the process substantively, not instrumentally and including a channel to a policy-making process is crucial. Next, we propose that the vision phase of policy making, i.e., the future vision, could be an arena where diverse potential, but unclear, stakeholders could interactively communicate toward a common goal, or produce policy options linked to the future vision and an new PEST tool called Interactive Public Comment. Finally we showed some examples of interactive public comment trials in Japan.