How Can Scientists Become Players in the Long Game of Policy Change?
“Policy entrepreneurs” often fly under the radar, developing policy ideas to solve problems over decades and surfacing with solutions at just the right moment. Researchers, engineers, consumer advocates, clinicians, civil servants, or community organizers—policy entrepreneurs are innovators who pull together ideas and supporters to accomplish what they could not on their own: a system for constantly updating health guidelines with the latest evidence, requirements to register clinical trials, an accounting system to track pollutants along supply chains. These skills are rarely taught in science or policy curriculums. But, as Erica Goldman writes in Issues, “teaching them to a wider range of scientists could bring both new policy ideas and more diverse perspectives into the process of democratic decisionmaking.”
What motivates policy entrepreneurs to keep at it? And do we know enough about how policy entrepreneurs operate to teach their skillset? What would a curriculum for teaching this secret syllabus look like? On Thursday, April 11 at 4 p.m. ET, join Erica Goldman, Michael Mintrom, Kartikeya Singh, and Arti Garg, for a conversation moderated by David Malakoff about the study and practice of the policy entrepreneur.
PANELISTS
- Erica Goldman, Director of Science Policy, Federation of American Scientists
- Michael Mintrom, Professor of Politics and International Relations, Monash University
- Kartikeya Singh, Director for Network Leadership, Growald Climate Fund.
- Arti Garg, Founder & Chair, Engineers & Scientists Acting Locally
- David Malakoff (moderator), International News Editor, Science