“Researchers’ credibility does not have to suffer when they engage politically”
New guidelines for policy engagement and science-based policy advice have been in force at ETH Zurich since February. They offer guidance for ETH members wishing to participate in the dialogue between science and policy. Benedikt Knüsel, Head of the Science-Policy Interface unit, explains the key issues in this obvious field of tension.
What are the content and purpose of the guidelines?
Benedikt Knüsel: The guidelines address science-policy engagement, i.e. how researchers inform policymakers about scientific findings and contribute their expertise to political debates. They provide an overview of the principles, roles and risks arising when ETH members advise policymakers or engage politically as scientific experts. The aim is to enable political decisions and measures to be taken based on the best scientific evidence available. The guidelines also express a consolidated viewpoint that this engagement at the interface between science and policy is appreciated and supported at ETH.
What goal do the guidelines pursue?
The ETH Executive Board and our team, the Science-Policy Interface unit, expressly encourage ETH members to pass on their scientific findings to policymakers and thereby contribute to evidence-based policymaking. We have deliberately chosen to draw up guidelines and not, for instance, to issue binding directives. These guideposts contain best practices and recommendations that ETH members can use for orientation. However, they do not constitute a set of regulations prescribing what they may and may not do.
To whom are the guidelines addressed?
The guidelines concern all ETH members active in the area of science-based policy advice or at the interface between science and policy – this is something that arose from the consultation. This obviously applies primarily to researchers as they can contribute their scientific findings to the political processes. Having said this, many employees in staff and administrative functions at ETH also have scientific expertise, such as in the field of sustainability and myself in my own position. The guidelines also apply to me, as I have also scientifically worked at the interface between science and policy.
To what extent are the guidelines binding?
The guidelines do not contain any prohibitions. How ETH members go about advising policymakers, how they contribute to political decision-making and how they take part publicly in political discussions is essentially left up to them. Freedom of opinion, freedom of assembly, and academic freedom are very valuable assets for ETH that are to be protected. These are freedoms that also apply to ETH members and that we respect unreservedly. However, there are some requirements.
Which are these?
Research collaboration with partisan actors is at the core. If, for instance, ETH researchers wish to carry out research work on behalf of a political party, they are required to inform our team, the Science-Policy Interface unit, of this. This is a binding requirement. There are naturally also other ETH legal texts applicable to collaboration with policymakers, such as the Research Contract Guidelines and Secondary Employment Guidelines that we refer to in the guidelines.
Does this mean that ETH members are free to engage politically but that this should concern policy issues and not party politics?
The guidelines do not fundamentally prohibit collaboration with a political party or with the committee proposing a popular initiative. However, there are certain risks that arise when ETH members advise parties or other partisan actors or execute studies commissioned by such actors. For example, no political stakeholder will commission a study simply because they are interested in the findings. They wish to and will use the findings to gain political capital.
The risk here is that researchers are instrumentalised, and the results are communicated in a one-sided or curtailed manner. These risks are significantly reduced by not just collaborating with one party or one political power. I therefore advise researchers primarily to collaborate above party lines.
What can researchers do to prevent themselves from being politically instrumentalised?
In the case of potentially sensitive collaboration, particularly with stakeholders who are clearly positioned politically, they are recommended to set out the arrangements for communication in advance. All communication should ideally take place in consultation with ETH. This way researchers can prevent a one-sided or curtailed presentation of the results. Transparency is also important. The studies, policy briefs and other documents drawn up for policy advice and political stakeholders should be published in a freely accessible format either prior to or at the latest simultaneously with public communication.
If there are reasons preventing parts from being published or only allowing them to be published later, what is to be communicated or published at what time and by whom should be set out in writing in advance. Finally, ETH members should also have the courage not to conduct certain studies: I would not investigate issues that are largely resolved from a scientific perspective but are the subject of controversial political discussion. I would also be careful if a commissioning party wished to have only an isolated effect studied within a larger problem due to political reasons.
The guidelines categorically do not address lobbying. Why is this?
If ETH Zurich as an institution wishes to represent its own interests towards policymakers, this is the job of the President and not the subject of the guidelines. When lobbying, ETH legitimately upholds its own interests. By contrast, science-policy engagement is about delivering as comprehensive an evidence base as possible for policy decisions. Separating these two activities is therefore particularly important in order to avoid potential conflicts of interest.
Engagement, which is the subject of the new guidelines, concerns a wide range of policy fields, such as the environment, climate, energy, economy, migration, urban development, health, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence etc.
“Researchers should avoid that their own values, preferences and views are perceived as scientifically substantiated facts.”Benedikt Knüsel
Should researchers speak out in public political debates about issues that do not concern their research area?
What is important is that ETH members also uphold scientific integrity in political discussions and when advising policymakers. This means pointing out the questions in their discipline about which there is consensus, which results are certain, and which are still under discussion. This also includes disclosing the limits of their expertise.
However, they are not forbidden from also speaking out on issues beyond their research area, as political problems are often complex and need to be analysed from a broad range of perspectives. ETH members need to be aware when doing so that they will always be perceived as representatives of ETH and thus as scientific experts, even when speaking personally, privately or outside their core expertise.
Is it therefore legitimate for researchers also to make known their personal opinion alongside their scientific expertise?
This is fundamentally legitimate. However, they should separate their view as a private citizen from what they say as a researcher even if this separation is easier in theory than it is in practice. An important principle to be upheld is that researchers should avoid that their own values, preferences, and views are perceived as scientifically substantiated facts.
Ought ETH researchers to speak out in political discussions in which the objectives diverge?
What is certainly the case is that there are fewer pitfalls for researchers in policy advice when dealing with technical issues that can be clearly narrowed down and with clearly worded objectives – for example, they can provide a good explanation of what is necessary to ensure that an electronic identity is introduced with the greatest possible security, encryption and confidentiality. By contrast, a political problem such as the COVID pandemic has multiple economic, social and health-related dimensions and entails strongly conflicting goals.
What the goals are and how they are to be weighted is part of political decision-making and cannot be answered scientifically. The researchers accordingly also need to take multiple dimensions and various possible consequences into account in analysis and policy advice.
And how should they do this?
By working – like the COVID-19 Science Task Force – in an interdisciplinary manner to understand the different perspectives. I recommend in such situations that researchers present the available options to policymakers and show them what the consequences of implementing each of them would be. However, I would be cautious about recommending a specific course of action. The decision in such cases always lies with the policymakers.
And what if certain topics are politically controversial per se?
It is not possible entirely to avoid some politicians perceiving certain research questions as politically motivated – and to a certain degree it is to be expected that the results of socially relevant research work are occasionally politicised.
This is clearly visible in energy research: whether or not energy researchers include nuclear power plants in an energy scenario is already construed by certain groups as a political judgement. This is because whatever options and scenarios scientists take into consideration is ultimately also driven by value questions.
I therefore advise ETH members in controversial policy issues that when collaborating with policymakers they above all present the facts in as evidence-based a manner as possible rather than giving recommendations on how policymakers should decide.
What exactly does this mean?
It means pointing out the possible courses of action and explaining their advantages and drawbacks and also developing new options in collaboration with policymakers and the public administration without specifically recommending any of them. This makes it more difficult for ETH members to be placed in a political corner, which would not always be in their own interest or that of ETH Zurich.
Could you explain the nuclear power example a little more?
The debate about nuclear power plants is very much one between political camps. I firmly believe that the discussion about the future of nuclear power plants in Switzerland will benefit from the involvement of ETH research. ETH research can provide support by pointing out the requirements and consequences of various scenarios, such as how much different scenarios cost, how much we are dependent on other countries and how secure the supply is, etc.
It is important to understand that the decision to rely on nuclear power or to exit this technology ultimately has to be a political one. However, individual researchers are naturally free to argue for or against nuclear power. ETH also lives from the fact that its researchers adopt different positions.
“The more a political problem is characterised by conflicts of interest, the more ETH members are recommended not to prescribe any political decisions.”Benedikt Knüsel
To sum up, researchers may communicate objective scientific results or explicitly answer political questions. You specify the possible roles on the website on the guidelines: the “honest broker” synthesises facts for decision-making without advocating for one specific course of action, while the “issue advocate” adopts a stance in an evidence-based but clear manner concerning the political measure they favour.
Both roles are possible according to the guidelines. However, following the consultation procedure we removed explicit role descriptions such as “honest broker” or “issue advocate” from the guidelines. Instead, we now underline the core idea: the more a political problem is characterised by unclear goals and conflicts of interest, the more ETH members are recommended not to prescribe any political decisions in policy advice and not to advocate in favour of specific measures. This corresponds to the role of the honest broker. Our concern is that researchers should consciously select which role they adopt because their choice has consequences – such as that they could be monopolised or perceived as activists.
Should professors become involved in parties, political committees or campaigns or should they remain independent?
The decision as to how they wish to get involved ultimately lies with the individual professors. There are undoubtedly major advantages to be gained from researchers preserving their independence. Particularly in a case such as the COVID Task Force it was crucial for the researchers involved to be perceived as independent. However, it may make sense in other cases for a professor to become involved, for example, as a member of the scientific advisory board of an initiative committee. I wouldn’t give any blanket recommendations in this regard. Whether it makes sense to get involved depends on the specific case.
What about when researchers give recommendations concerning referenda and elections?
I view this in the same way as other engagements at the science-policy interface: researchers may in principle become involved before elections and referenda on the basis of personal and academic freedoms if they wish to. For example, if researchers explicitly wish to campaign for a yes or a no to a referendum proposal, they may do so. If researchers participate after careful consideration in a voting campaign, such as the Federal Act on Climate Protection Goals, Innovation and Strengthening Energy Security last summer, this is legitimate.
However, what they need to be aware of is that political and media attention increases prior to elections and popular votes , which means that the risk of a statement being instrumentalised is also comparatively higher. I would recommend researchers wishing to avoid this to exercise restraint. Overall, I personally find that it makes more sense for scientists to participate actively in political issues of a factual nature in the case of popular votes as there is a clear link here to their specialist area. This link is less direct in the case of elections.
Do the guidelines also apply to international policymaking?
The guidelines have been deliberately worded to reflect the fact that ETH wishes to support policymaking at all levels: local, cantonal, national, and international. The guidelines also apply to international policymaking. The reality after all is that for many political decisions, at least the direction is set at the international level and that many ETH researchers have not been socialised in Switzerland and play an active part in other countries. This is something we take into account.
Is the credibility of scientists impaired when they engage politically?
Studies have shown that credibility does not have to suffer when researchers participate in policymaking and engage politically. The risk of their credibility suffering, at least among certain political camps, arguably increases the more explicitly scientists clearly advocate for or against specific politicy measures.
Scientific rigor, integrity and objectivity are important prerequisites for their credibility, as properly justified arguments are also needed in policy discussions – especially on the part of scientific experts.
However, at the end of the day, it is not just the credibility of researchers that is important but also the fact that we at ETH wish to contribute to a sensible and democratic debating and decision-making culture in which decisions are made in as well-informed a manner as possible and are democratically legitimised.
Profile
Benedikt Knüsel has been Head of the Science-Policy Interface unit at the Office of Knowledge Transfer and Corporate Relations, the central point of contact for science-policy engagement at ETH Zurich, since September 2022. Prior to this he was a Scientific Advisor at the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation. From 2017 until 2020 he was a doctoral student at the Institute for Environmental Decisions and the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science (Department of Environmental Systems Science). His doctoral thesis addressed questions in philosophy of science concerning data-driven models in climate research.
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