Category Archives: Scientist on the Scene

Scientist on the Scene: Advice for Working at the Boundary of Science and Policy from Dr. David Evers

by Alice Alpert and Danya Rumore

Amid observing and analyzing the INC5 negotiations, one question that seems to be on many of our MIT team members’ minds is “As scientists and academics, what is our role in influencing policy and decision-making?” More specifically, where does the line between science and advocacy lie, and how should a scientist who cares about a given issue—like mercury—interact (or not) with the policy realm?

Looking for answers, a couple of us cornered Dr. David Evers after an INC5 side session on “Global Mercury Hotspots.” Hosted by David and his colleagues at the Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) and IPEN, the side session shared with decision-makers the findings of a recent scientific report, available here, which found high levels of mercury contamination in marine and freshwater ecosystems around the world.

David, the Executive Director of BRI, is an excellent example of a scientist who, through his work, seeks to work at the boundary between science and policy.

Explaining his work, David is quick to say, “I try very hard to be that unbiased scientist that goes about getting data in an unbiased way.” Trained as a conservation biologist, he readily acknowledges that he has a fundamental interest in the sustainability of human interactions with ecosystems. As a result, he has chosen to research mercury, a compound that is harmful to ecosystems and human health. However, he makes clear, he does not have a policy objective in mind when he formulates his research questions. Nor does a particular policy objective drive his research.

Instead, David says, his goal is to provide policy makers with the best possible information about mercury and its impacts on ecosystems; it is the decision-makers’ job to translate this information into the best possible policy, whatever that may be.

For example, one of David’s recent projects brought together a team of mercury researchers with the goal of compiling scientific findings about mercury in the northeast region of the US. The team then translated these scientific findings into a language and format that is easy for policy makers to fully understand, and shared this information with Congressional staffers and federal agencies in Washington, DC.

In contrast to a policy-advocate, David doesn’t focus on whether the scientific information he is presenting supports a certain policy objective. Nor does he interpret what his findings should mean for policy and decision-making.  “I’m an advocate for scientific information,” not a policy advocate, he explains. And while he thinks that the scientific findings presented during his Global Mercury Hotspots presentation are reason for concern, he adds that, here at the INC5, “I’m not advocating, it’s strange to say, for a stronger mercury policy.”

One concern many members of our MIT team struggle with is how to influence the world of policy with our research without compromising our integrity as unbiased scientists and academics. David recognizes this concern, but says that he feels that the boundary between science-advocate and policy-advocate is quite clear. As long as you’re only advocating for the use of good information in decision-making, you haven’t compromised your position as a credible source of unbiased information. Once you begin to let policy objectives direct your research or start advocating for specific policies, however, you’ve crossed the line into policy advocacy. And, he adds, “there’s no going back.”

So what’s his advice for academic “youngsters”, like us, who are interested in the intersection of science and policy?

First off, don’t be afraid to walk the line between science and policy, David says, just make sure to push for good science and focus on making this information readily available and understandable, rather than advocating for particular policies or regulations.

Second, you don’t need to know everything, and you can’t be an expert in everything. When your work crosses over into a discipline, like public health, that you don’t know well, bring in colleagues to help.

Third, as a scientific expert, people will often corner you to ask what you think the policy implications of your research are; when you respond, keep your opinion out of it and make clear that you are simply interpreting the data you have gathered.

Finally, he says, many scientists fear the media, because they are afraid that the media will misinterpret or skew their research and findings. David says that, when possible, it is preferable to work with journalists that you know and trust. But it’s important to get your findings into the public conversation, so don’t shy away from the media.

To learn more about working at the intersection of science and policy, read Amanda Giang’s Scientist on the Scene profile of Dr. Celia Chen and follow our blog and twitter (@MITmercury) as we report on the final day of the INC5 mercury negotiations.

Scientist on the Scene: A Profile of Dr. Celia Chen

Celia Chenby Amanda Giang

We’re certainly not the only science-folk at INC5. Over the course of the week, we’ve had the opportunity to meet many others who are here to support the negotiation in one way or another. Between sessions, I had the chance to catch up with one of them, Dr. Celia Chen, to find out a little more about why she’s here at the negotiations and what advice she has for us aspiring science-policy wonks.

Celia works in the Department of Biology at Dartmouth College, as part of the Toxic Metals Superfund Research Program. The program, which is funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), looks at how mercury and arsenic in the environment affect ecosystem and human health. Within the program, she spends her time “wearing two different hats,” she says, one as a traditional eco-toxicologist and principal investigator for a project on the fate of metals in aquatic food webs, and a second as the principal investigator of research translation. “Translation is part of the mandate NIEHS gives for Superfund research,” Celia explains. Not only are researchers within these programs expected to clarify the science of contamination, but they’re also expected to make sure that their findings are communicated—or translated—to stakeholders (i.e., the people who can use or are directly affected by the findings), be they regulators from the EPA and FDA, or local food cooperatives.

She sees this research translation as a crucial role that scientists must play in policy-making forums. “We need to take what we know about the science and put it in a language that is accessible to policy makers,” she argues. Too often, critical scientific knowledge remains locked up in scientific publications, which, while they are the bread-and-butter of professional research, don’t always penetrate into policy circles. Celia feels that it is the responsibility of scientists to put their work in a form that resonates with—and is useful to—those in decision-making positions, from consumers making choices about their personal fish consumption, to negotiators working at an international scale. In fact, that’s why she’s attending the mercury negotiations. In 2010, the Toxic Metals Superfund Research Program created the Coastal and Marine Mercury Ecosystem Research Collaborative (C-MERC) to synthesize current knowledge on the environmental health impacts of mercury in a policy relevant way. Celia is attending INC5 to share the results of this project: the Sources to Seafood report.

“We tried to ask stakeholders first what they needed to know,” describes Celia. “The timing of [the Sources to Seafood report] was on purpose.”

Sources to Seafood was published on the tail of a domestic regulation in the US for mercury from coal-fired power plants, and directly before the final negotiating session for a global treaty on mercury. A key question that policy makers for both domestic and international regulation want clarified is how controlling different sources of mercury emissions and releases will actually affect human exposure. This question is important for both designing new policy and evaluating existing ones.

“When we began this work, most of the research done on mercury in the environment was done in freshwater systems, not marine. But most people are exposed to methylmercury through marine seafood,” Chen says. The report estimates that, for most of the US population, 85% of methylmercury exposure comes from marine fish. What are the sources of mercury that affect different marine and estuarine—that is, ocean and coastal—systems, from which fish are harvested? How do these sources affect human exposure? Researchers in biogeochemistry, food web dynamics, and health were all trying to answer different parts of these questions, but these different threads weren’t being woven together into a comprehensive picture.

“The most novel part of [the Sources to Seafood report],” Celia argues, is its interdisciplinary and cross-scale approach. “There are still many gaps and not enough data,” she says, but by synthesizing many different studies from different fields, a few conclusions can be drawn.

The most important point from the Sources to Seafood report that needs to be conveyed to decision-makers, Celia highlights, is that for each ocean system, critical sources of mercury may be different—some systems are most affected by atmospheric deposition, while others are most affected by inputs from rivers. Will the draft text on emissions and releases reflect these nuances? Celia hopes that reports like Sources to Seafood might help ensure that it does.

As for students interested in marine science-policy, Celia recommends that they consider the Sea Grant Knauss Fellowships, which match students with “host” policy makers in the executive and legislative branches of the US government in Washington D.C. These fellowships are open to any student, regardless of citizenship, enrolled in a graduate program at a US university that has a Sea Grant program.

For those interested in how the final treaty shapes up, keep following developments here on our blog and via twitter @amandagiang and @MITmercury.