Future Societal Needs

Societal dialogue needs more than public engagement

The term ‘dialogue’ has become an important part of ‘science and society’ discourse during the past decade. As such, statements like the following have become integral to reports and activities at the interface of science and society: “The acquisition of a basic grounding in science and technology by the European public and a regular flow of information to the public from experts are not in the...

Reducing Societal Vulnerability to Drought: Future Challenges

Sensing Technologies for Societal Well-Being: A Needs Analysis

Sensing technologies by design are calibrated for accuracy against an expected measurement scale. Sensor calibration and signal processing criteria are one type of sensor data, while the sensor readings are another. Ensuring data accuracy and precision from sensors is an essential, ongoing challenge, but these issues haven’t stopped the potential for pervasive application use. Technological adv...

Improving fitness: Mapping research priorities against societal needs on obesity

Science policy is increasingly shifting towards an emphasis in societal problems or grand challenges. As a result, new evaluative tools are needed to help assess not only the knowledge production side of research programmes or organisations, but also the articulation of research agendas with societal needs. In this paper, we present an exploratory investigation of science supply and societal ne...

Asking the Right Questions: Atmospheric Sciences Research and Societal Needs

In recent years, those who conduct federally funded research in the United States have been asked by their patrons, the public and their elected representatives, to demonstrate more efficacy with respect to societal needs. Although there is a long record of efforts to improve connections of research with societal needs, a problem exists in that in recent decades the production of scientific kno...