A subtle but strong positioning – A political dialogue forum

The first Science and Democracy World Forum (SDWF) took place in Belém (Brazil) on January 26th and 27th and the first conclusions were presented during the Assemblies of the Alliances Day of the World Social Forum on February 1st, 2009. It was a success beyond what the initiators and organizers were expected, particularly with regard to the human and financial means, which allowed this forum to be held, were “modest”.

Nearly 300 delegates, coming from 18 countries on 4 continents, shared on the place that sciences and technologies have on the “march of the world”, on their evolutions and on the necessity of the emergence, on an international scale, of a network-space, which could put in prospects the working of the scientific institutions (funding, scientific politics, knowledge production) in the globalization era and linked with social movements.

In that way, we completely validated the bet on which we based this first edition of the Science and Democracy World Forum : the necessity to initiate a political dialogue space between CSOs and scientific organisation or institutions. All the delegates admitted that such a space didn’t exist before this one. This statement makes the follow-up and the development of the SDWF even more meaningful and precious.

We confirmed the tendency observable in many countries : the demand level and the constructive criticism towards the techno-scientific complex are increasing. The demand level goes with a real voluntarism of not letting the techno-scientific complex drifting according to dominant forces. On the same way, it appeared as an agreement that “the” scientific community is not homogeneous and affected by many tensions. In that way, we shared the assessment of a weakness regarding social, ecological, ethical and democratic parameters within the techno-scientific complex, regarding the “social responsibility” of researchers issues, the ambiguous (or which deserves, at least, to be deepened and updated) notion of “freedom/autonomy of research and researchers” and many other parameters absolutely crucial in the “life” of this community.

A last very positive point of this first edition came from the quality of the exchanges between the different actors but also from the progressive establishment of an atmosphere of trust and a desire of common work. This fund of understanding is precious because it will determine the future of our initiative. It allowed political agreements on the governance and decision processes for the second edition. A mandate was given to the French organisations to stimulate and coordinate the preparation of the 2nd Science and Democracy World Forum.

Beyond this very positive assessment, three important limits must be expressed. These limits can be mainly explained by the fact that the organisations don’t have a real “shared culture” yet (and consequently not enough mutual trust for the moment).

The first limit is geographical : the absence of representative of important “zone” such as the USA, Russia, Japan or China for the 1st SDWF ; efforts will be needed to solve it for the 2nd edition.

The second one is that organisations feel reticent to integrate a space, which would lead to campaigns and actions. This platform/network is, on the one hand of scientific organisations, is firstly seen as a place dedicated to exchanges and debates. On the other hand, NGOs have expressed the will to go beyond debates to head for common actions and campaigns as soon as possible (even if debates are, even for them, the core of the process).

And last of those three identified limits : the refusal to sign the final document, which has been considered as a statement and a first step. Even if the absence of formal signatures doesn’t burden with the future at all, it would be good to create the conditions of a better “visibility”.

Strong common axes with prospects

We finally managed to produce collectively a document, which doesn’t level the debates too low. Some strong axes are building a solid political framework. In spite of a big political and cultural diversity, no debates were left on one side.

Besides, the context of “multiple crisis” allowed the debates to become rooted in a wider frame. Facing with the crisis, the analysis of the ravages of “wild capitalism” in the scope of knowledge created an efficient political consensus. But we didn’t manage to solve the deep-rooted differences of opinion on the place of sciences and technologies in the world to come but from now on the question is on the table and people accept to talk openly about it.

One of the main concerns was the choices and orientations as regards of research policy (stakes of university policy included). Different tendencies appeared on those questions according to whether you were an activist or an NGO on the one hand, or a researcher and even more a technician or an engineer on the other hand.

But sturdy political convergences emerged. Firstly, the place of financial markets and of the privatisation of knowledge : several options and ideas appeared on different property regimes, establishing that it was a common concern for all the actors. The stake of “common goods” or “public goods” (various approaches are persisting) will be one of the structuring axes of the next editions. The “commons’ battle” (even if the semantics is not totally shared) open a new way for alternatives and allow to think about potential campaigns coordinating at a global scale.

The fact that the SDWF took place in Belém guaranteed a wide presence of indigenous topics during the debates, particularly the link between academic and traditional knowledge. As a matter of fact, this stake converges on the will to fight against monopoly (in the present case, the presumption of legitimacy monopoly) and hegemony. The strong tropism to accept the principle of their own monopoly on knowledge within the scientific communities of research institutions is progressively called into question (c.f. international conventions on biodiversity, cultural diversity, etc.). But we noticed that this “mutation” must go on to promote another form of “knowledge ecology” based on diversity without putting one knowledge over another.

An other axis of agreement was the education stakes but it strangely not appear in the final text of the SDWF even if it should have been thanks to an explicit demand formulated, in particular, by the French union Snes-Sup.

An important point of dissensus appeared but it will lead to major debates in the SDWF process : the “organic” link and the debate between the techno-scientific complex and our democracies. Between autonomy on the one hand, necessity to free scientists from a brutal intervention of states, markets or militaries on the other hand, scientists can’t promote one univocal solution alone. In that sense, the question of counter powers, of new balances should be one of the frames of the 2nd SDWF.

Geopolitical stakes of opening and broadening

The broadening of the SDWF could follow four directions :

 In the scientific community : firstly to continue to popularise these stakes, to federate actors and stakeholders. To reach this point, a clear idea of the different agendas is needed. Where is it possible to talk and debate ? Which document or idea can be spread ? These issues have to be structured before summer 2009 ;

 Thematically : many actors and stakeholders coming from different organisations, leading different type of experiences showed their interest for the 1st SDWF. NGOs (for example Attac, Friends of the Earth, Climate and Justice Network, etc.) and researchers networks or associations (Save Research or Save University from France, etc.) understood the stakes of such a platform. Among these stakes, we could mention the needed “docking” of the SDWF to the agendas of the alter-globalisation movement and of the internal questionings of scientific communities ;

 Geographically : we agreed on the fact that we have to find scientific organisations and concerned movements in the USA, in Russia, in Japan and in China. Concerning China, discussions with the French organisation Fondation pour le Progrès de l’Homme should help us. Concerning the USA, we will take in account the eventuality of a US Forum open to the world in june 2010 to “connect” with academics, concerned scientists and whistleblowers organisations in the USA ;

 Nationally : we consider as crucial the fact that the SDWF dynamics could reinforce exchanges, sharing and dialogues within each country or region (European Union, Latin America, India, etc.).

How to gather the conditions for success and reinforcement

It was interesting and revealing to notice how much prejudices and pre-requisites of delegates carried weight during the discussions. So it appeared essential to build a corpus of common references, of concrete, situated and tangible examples, which would allow to each actor to understand and apprehend better the scope of the debates. When NGOs are talking about the necessity to discuss about new method of governance of research, it’s quite natural that scientists fear for their autonomy and “room of freedom”. In the opposite direction, regarding the actual practices of traditional knowledge plundering or the spreading in the “environment” of scientific products or molecules even before the end of impact-studies, it’s understandable that NGOs and whistleblowers are “scalded” by a scientific “freedom”, which is too often the curtain of smoke of submissiveness to the funding of research. That’s why going further these contradictions (it’s written anywhere that the NGOs involved in the SDWF claim for a “taking over” of the process) deserves to know what everybody is talking about by proposing examples, proposals and alternatives.

One of the first conditions for a success of the second edition of the SDWF will consist in writing a pedagogical document illustrating case studies in which the “sciences and democracy” stakes are present. This document could be analysis on different topics : evolutions of research methods, funding choices and orientations, evolution of scientific paradigms, alternatives like Open Access or Open Review, governance of emerging technologies, difficulties to follow up the “technological path”, use-conflicts, proposals to manage in a better way polarized and/or controversial debates, campaigns to promote alternatives (such as “commons”), property regimes and necessity of involvement of the scientific community, question of choice in uncertainty situations, etc.

This corpus could be spread widely and could build problematics and perspectives for the 2nd edition of the SDWF.

These objectives are ambitious. They are answering the hopes and questionings raised up by the holding of the 1st Science and Democracy World Forum. Delegates and organisers must gather forces to make it go further. To reach it, we need a framework built on initiatives and shared events, meetings or encounters. The preparation of the forum in Belém “taught” us how much dynamism such an agenda could inject into the process.

The French group of associations received the mandate to impulse such an agenda and to coordinate the preparation of the 2nd edition of the SDWF, to involve actors from different regions of the world in mobilising in conferences and reflections, and to exchange on a global scale to share experiences and point of views.

We propose the following calendar to impulse the follow-up of actions and reflections for the SDWF process :

 before summer 2009 : in each concerned region and in the “linguistic zone”, a day dedicated to a seminar on assessment and perspectives ;

 Spring 2009 : search for funding to make the process go further. Within this framework, the French coordination, which funded for a large part the 1st SDWF will meet its partners to ensure the continued existence of Sciences and Democracy Forums. The other “regions” are invited to lead their own research of funding to contribute to the continuity of the process ;

 Fall 2009 : to allow “organizers” and “stakeholders” of the different involved regions to meet each others and build a common agenda and evaluate the expectations and feedbacks, the French group set as an objective to hold meeting for about fifteen people strongly involved into the process to “bind together” an “international steering committee” to prepare the steps to come and to organise the collective writing of documents (such as the ones proposed above) ;

 End of 2009 : to insure a permanence of reflections on “Sciences and Democracy” issues, their sharing and to bring under control the quality of contributions, we should think about the same kind of validation process that the scientific review. The idea of a scientific review with a “mixed-peer-review committee” (researchers, academics, “intellectuals” of social movements) was proposed. The publishing of a multilingual book (or translated in the four languages of the SDWF) would be a good starting point. This book would make concrete and tangible the understanding of what the actors of the SDWF mean when they are talking about “Sciences and Democracy” stakes. Regarding the diversity of speeches and experiences, it appeared crucial to clarify our reflections by giving examples, by situating cases, by explaining the differences and common points from one geographical area to another ;

 Before the end of 2009 : To allow a better coordination and a better visibility to the SDWF process, the “reworking” of the website is a necessity. We must switch from a “mobilisation website” (call, wiki, contributions, schedule of the forum…) to a website of coordination and reflection. The website will be “display case” of our project. The multilingual aspects must be increased for a better global understanding, to improve open sharing, to let each linguistic zone to exchange fruitfully, by respecting the thought and writing of each language. The Indian group could lead this project of reworking of the website. The French people, who initiated the existing website, would help the Indian group during the “transition” ;

 2010 : “continental” events ;

 2011 : 2nd edition of the Science and Democracy World Forum.

This text was proposed by the so-called “French Impulsion Group”.