The net migration target may have failed, but it has shifted the way we debate immigration
In this post, Christina Boswell discusses the ways the quantification of immigration targets influences the way we shape immigration policies.
On evidence tools for public health policy
A range of techniques and methods exist to assemble and present research findings in a way that will be ‘useful’ to policymakers. In public health, three of the most popular are Health Impact Assessments, systematic reviews, and economic decision-making tools.
Targeting brains, producing responsibilities: The use of neuroscience within British social policy
In this blog, Tineke Broer and Martyn Pickersgill discuss whether and how policy documents engage with the neurosciences in relation to three different stages in the life course.
Targets, quantification and moral deliberation
How do the sorts of compression and simplification implied by quantification affect how we reason and debate questions of distributive justice, rights, or duties?
Think-tanks and the governance of science
Martyn Pickersgill and Emilie Cloatre reflect on the discussions held during the event entitled ‘Regulating Bioscience: Between the Ivory Tower and the Policy Room’, which took place on 6 October 2014 at the Wellcome Trust Conference Centre.
The power and politics of international assessments in Europe
International education assessments have become the lifeblood of education governance in Europe and globally. However, what do we really know about how education systems are measured against one another and the effects this measuring produces?
What is the patient experience?
While a concern with how people experience health and illness has long been a topic of interest in Medical Sociology and Anthropology, the emergence of the patient experience alongside quality and safety as a key measure of healthcare services is a more recent phenomenon. Yet despite its increasing prominence, what counts as a patient experience and indeed how these experiences can and should be counted remains up for debate.
The use of expertise in the Scottish referendum debate: build them up to knock them down?
In a wonderfully perceptive article from 1999, German sociologist Peter Weingart identifies two paradoxes surrounding the use of science in political debate (and we can apply this to expertise more generally). First, late modern societies show an unprecedented dependence on expert knowledge to assess the risks and consequences of political action.
Can we democratise decisions on complex issues?
Professor Albert Weale FBA (UCL) writes about the challenges of knowledge democratisation and mini-publics.