Celsius | School of Communications
Celsius 2011
Interdisciplinary Experiences – Collaborations and Collisions
Sixth annual Celsius Symposium on Science and Society, The Helix Gallery, Dublin City University, Friday 10 June 2011
9.00 – 11.00 Interdisciplinarity and Pedagogy
Lynn Scarff (TCD Science Gallery): The Future of Water – the Idea Translation Lab
James Lovatt (DCU School of Education Studies): Developing a module in Interdisciplinary Science
Richard O’Kennedy (DCU Vice-President for Learning Innovation): Science in the courtroom – forensics, role-play and undergraduate education
Brian Trench (DCU School of Communications): Science communication – the evolution of a new academic subject
Chair: Marguerite Barry, DCU
11.00 – 11.30 Coffee break
11.30 – 1.00 Synergies between disciplines
Pat Brereton (DCU School of Communications, Associate Dean of Research for the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences) and Stephen Daniels (DCU School of Electronic Engineering): New research approaches for sustainability
Enrico Marsili (DCU School of Biotechnology) and Padraig Murphy (DCU School of Communications): A dialogical life cycle approach for nanotechnology?
Siobhan O’Sullivan (former scientific director, Irish Council for Bioethics, and member, European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies): Research ethics and bioethics – where disciplines meet
Chair: Juliana Adelman, TCD
1.00 – 2.00 Lunch
2.00 – 3.15 Keynote address
Brian Wynne (Lancaster University): The roles of publics and science in the governance of food biotechnology
Chair: Padraig Murphy
3.15 – 4.00 Concluding session
Chair: Brian Trench
4.00 Reception
Summary report of the sixth annual Celsius science-in-society symposium held in Dublin City University on 10th June 2011
The keynote speaker at this year’s symposium was Brian Wynne, professor of science studies at the University of Lancaster, author of numerous papers and books on social issues in science and technology, and participant in many European and British research projects and policy advisory groups. Prof Wynne addressed governance of food biotechnology, mainly from the perspectives of global food production, biodiversity and the lay knowledge of local farmers. He tracked developments in British and European policy in this arena, noting that the publicly stated position of the European Commission on environmental risk associated with genetically modified crops was at odds with the Commission’s unpublished submissions to the World Trade Organisation on the same topic.
In an interesting aside, Prof Wynne remarked that much commentary on the critique of the deficit model in science communication, of which he was the first (and is still the most frequently cited) voice, had misrepresented his view as a critique of the notion that publics have deficits of knowledge. Earlier, Lynn Scarff of the Science Gallery at Trinity College Dublin described a university-level module open to students of all disciplines in which they work in teams to develop ideas for possible products and services, this year addressing issues in access to and quality of water.
James Lovatt (School of Education Studies, DCU) reported the experiences of colleagues in Chemical Sciences and Physical Sciences in delivering an interdisciplinary science module to first-year students. Using a scenario involving social and ethical issues students learned skills of argument and presentation but also – as they acknowledged – learned significant science content also.
Prof Richard O’Kennedy, DCU’s Vice-President for Learning Innovation, presented his experience of teaching a final-year course in biotechnology using forensic problems to engage the students and to teach them about presenting scientific evidence in legal and social contexts.
Stephen Daniels (Energy Design Lab, DCU) and Pat Brereton (school of Communications, DCU) recounted their developing collaboration around public perceptions and behaviour on energy issues that is leading to a “true cross-disciplinary research agenda”. A new PhD studentship will be located across the two disciplinary areas.
The focus of the collaboration between Enrico Marsili (School of Biotechnology, DCU) and Padraig Murphy (School of Communications, DCU) is on nanotechnology as a fast-growing field that invites interdisciplinary and dialogical approaches to its social assessment. These two researchers, from different disciplines, described new ways of approaching local/global interactions with various local community representatives, connecting wider ‘”macro” themes and debates of sustainability to ‘micro’ green tech innovation processes. There were “language” issues, they reported, due to the various fields of expertise in public engagement workshops.
Brian Trench (School of Communications, DCU) offered some reflections on different modes and degrees of interdisciplinarity and used the example of science communication’s growth worldwide to show risks and benefits associated with interdisciplinary experiences. Students’ common observation of feeling “more rounded” through exposure to various disciplinary perspectives represented the intrinsic value of interdisciplinarity, he said.
The Celsius group wishes to acknowledge the support of the Office of Vice President of Researchand the Office of Vice President of Learning Innovation for the hosting of this event.