cc: a.minns
date: Mon Jun  2 15:57:26 2003
from: Mike Hulme <m.hulme@uea.ac.uk>
subject: Fwd: Winning Arguments event, 25 June 2003, Commonwealth Club
to: shackley_Simon

   Simon,
   Frans has put this event together during social science week.  I've been thinking of what
   Tyndall examples we could give of either "success" or "failure" form Tyndall work.
   I did wonder whether your work on area-based decarbonisation for the SDC might be seen as a
   success - some of your ideas did seem to be taken forward by the SDC.  Do you think this is
   valid?   And if so, would you be prepared to join the event in London on the evening of 25
   June?
   If you don't think the story adds up to what Frans is after, do you have other ideas of
   successes or failures?
   Thanks,
   Mike

     To: "Mike Hulme" <m.hulme@uea.ac.uk>,
             "John Schellnhuber" <h.j.schellnhuber@uea.ac.uk>,
             "Asher Minns" <a.minns@uea.ac.uk>,
             "Kerry Turner" <r.k.turner@uea.ac.uk>,
             "Jouni Paavola" <j.paavola@uea.ac.uk>,
             "Ken Peattie" <Peattie@cardiff.ac.uk>,
             "Bob Lee" <LeeRG@Cardiff.ac.uk>,
             "Paul Ekins" <p.ekins@psi.org.uk>
     Cc: "Michelle Harris" <m.harris@sussex.ac.uk>
     Subject: Winning Arguments event, 25 June 2003, Commonwealth Club
     Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 18:18:54 +0100
     X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000
     From: F.Berkhout@sussex.ac.uk (Frans Berkhout)
     Dear all
     We have now put together an outline of the evening reception for ESRC Social Science
     Week.

     Our aims have been to create an event that gives an impression of the scope of ESRC
     investments in the area of environment and sustainability and which produces some
     interaction between people. We wanted to avoid lengthy expositions of what programme and
     centres were doing, but also wanted to give research leaders a change to pick out some
     research highlights. We wanted a mixture of short, informal interventions at the start,
     followed by a relaxed exchange of views over wine and canapes. The overall objectives
     are to signal to policymakers that there is a substantial social science research effort
     in this general area, to encourage some debate about how research can speak to policy
     more effectively, and to help create a few new contacts between people.

     The structure we have come up with is to have an exchange of topical 'war stories' about
     research interacting with and influencing policy at the start of the event (told by both
     researchers and policymakers), followed by an open discussion and then some informal and
     private networking. The capacity of the Commonwealth Club for this sort of event is 80
     people, and I guess the ideal mix would be about 50 researchers and about 30 policy
     types.

     The Chief Executive of the ESRC, Ian Diamond, will start the event off, and I am still
     trying to line up a couple of senior DTI/DEFRA speakers. I am hoping that you will all
     be able to come up with short remarks describing either a success in communicating with
     policymakers (whether in the UK or elsewhere) or a failure (good research which you felt
     never found an interested audience) and to draw one or two lessons from this experience.
     Policymakers will be encouraged to talk about cases where they have drawn on research,
     or about others where the evidence base was missing. The idea is that the discussion
     that follows (probably moderated by Ian Diamond) will produce some ideas about what
     works and what doesn't.

     A rough order of play would be:

     5.30-6.00        Arrival
     6.00-6.45        Ian Diamond, 5 Programme and Centre Directors and 2 policymakers
     6.45-7.15        Open discussion
     7.15-8.00        Networking
     8.00               Close

     The idea of the title is that it is eye-catching and has both pragmatic (how to?) and
     rhetorical (what is?)meanings.

     I would appreciate your feedback on this. In particular, I would be interested to know
     whether you are happy with the overall aims and programme, and whether you are willing
     to do one of the short talks at the beginning. I think the aim should be to say
     something pithy and fairly off-the-cuff to stimulate responses and discussion.

     We are planning to send out invitations this week and are assuming that most of the
     participants will be either London- or 'near London'-based. ESRC are being very helpful
     in providing lists of possible invitees from Westminster departments, and a number of
     you have provided lists of others. If you have lists of potential invitees to the event
     - especially researchers involved in your Programmes and Centres, that would be
     extremely helpful. We will be relying to some extent on the GEC database which is now a
     several years out of date.

     Hope to hear from you soon.
     Frans

     ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     Dr Frans Berkhout
     Director, ESRC Sustainable Technologies Programme
     SPRU-Science and Technology Policy Research
     Freeman Centre
     University of Sussex
     Brighton BN1 9QE
     UK

     PLEASE NOTE CHANGED ADDRESS DETAILS

     t (direct): +44 1273 877 130
     t (Michelle Harris): +44 1273 873 615
     f: +44 1273 685 865

     [1]www.sustainabletechnologies.ac.uk
     [2]www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/environment
     [3]www.sustainability-performance.org

